F^CHARD PxOGEP^S 
(:hf<]stian 

ALICE BARBER /A‘-CON NELL 




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RICHARD ROGERS 


CHRISTIAN 



ALICE BARBER McCONNELL 

Ik 

Author of “ Ruth Irving, M. D.” 


18 iaa4\’ 
*y-/7<^-X 


PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK 


PHILADELPHIA 



COPYRIGHT, 1 894, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBY'I'ICUIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK. 


All Rights Resejred. 


Westcott & Thomson, 
Slereotypers and Elecirotypers, Philada. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Boom City and its People 7 

CHAPTER 11. 

Unsolved Problems 17^ 

CHAPTER HI. 

The Saloon as a Bank - . 25 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Lesson of the Cactus-blossom 30 

CHAPTER V. 

Which Shall Prosper? 36 

CHAPTER VI. 

Masking the Business from the Common Eye . . 46 

CHAPTER VH. 

Daylight upon It 53 

3 


4 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

PAOE 

Side Lights and Halos • 63 

CHAPTER IX. 

“Deliberately Resolving to be Mad.” 74 

CHAPTER X. 

God’s Way of Saving the Boy ’ . . 81 

. CHAPTER XI. 

Unconditional Surrender 91 

CHAPTER XII. 

“An Age on Ages Telling.” 102 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Going by the Book 109 

CHAPTER XIV. 

How Undine came to Boom City 116 

CHAPTER XV. 

High Lights and Deep Shadows 126 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Blue and the Gray 135 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Mourning over Glories Gone 142 


CONTENTS. 


5 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


PAGE 

The Dramatic in Real Life 147 

CHAPTER XIX. 

If We Forgive Not 155 

CHAPTER XX. 

A Modern Hero 164 

CHAPTER XXL 

A Modern Madonna ' 175 


CHAPTER XXIL 

A Loving, Suffering, Soul-endowed Woman ... 184 


CHAPTER XXIH. 

Fair Play for the Preacher 191 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Geology, Genesis, and Gospel 198 

CHAPTER XXV. 

The Way of the Blizzard 206 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Cleansing Fires 212 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Hired Houses and Other Uncertainties 218 


6 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


PAGE 

Richard and Jenny 229 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Great in Little Things 233 • 

CHAPTER XXX. 

“Who is the Angel that Cometh?” 245 

CHAPTER XXXr. 

Planning a Home 251 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

As We Forgive 259 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

How Shall it End? 263 


RICHARD ROGERS, 
CHRISTIAN. 


CHAPTER I. 

BOOM CITY AND ITS PEOPLE. 

“Why should the.se words, Athenian, Roman, Asia, and 
England, so tingle in the ear? Where the heart is, there the 
. muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of 
fame. 

“ Here we are ; and if w’e will tarry a little, we may come 
to learn that here is best. See to it only that thyself is here, 
and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the 
Supreme Being, shall not be absent from the chamber where 
thou sittest.” — Emerson. 

T hat bluff is the centre of creation. On it a 
railroad company located Boom City ; that is, 
a settler whose claim the road must cross offered 
to give the company ground for a station and side- 
tracks, provided the town could be laid out on his 
land. The railroad company, wise in its genera- 
tion, accepted his offer. 

Swarms of Hungarians dug and graded. The 
steel tracks pushed out toward the west, and' the 
shriek of the locomotive frightened the antelopes 
away from their native feeding-ground. Near the 

7 


8 


ItICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


bluff a box-car was side-tracked to serve as a ticket- 
and freight-office, baggage-room, and the like, until 
a station could be built. Then came the tent stage 
of the town, after which the wooden buildings 
appeared — some of them two stories high. It is 
the magic of the nineteenth century. In the West, 
villages grow up as suddenly as storied cities were 
built to the sound of fairies’ harps. 

As new settlers came the old one sold town-lots 
and started a dry-goods, grocery, and general notion 
store. He soon became the leading merchant of the 
place, and will become mayor, congressman, perhaps 
governor of his State. He is growing up with the 
country. 

In the centre of the bluff was laid out a hollow 
square, in the centre of which a rough wooden 
building was put up to serve its purpose until a 
more imposing court-house could be built. The 
inhabitants soon wore off the turf which paved 
the village streets, and deeply-indented roads led 
away from the corners of the corporation. The 
grade of the sidewalks in front of the business 
houses was determined by the length of the posts 
on which each man saw fit to set his dry pine build- 
ings. There is nothing (save and excepting a small 
boy in his first pants ”) that feels as big for its size 
as a Western town in its second year. The signs 
on the business houses read like this: City Drug- 
Store City Dry-goods Store City Grocery.” 
These were on the south side of the square. The 


BOOM CITY AND ITS PEOPLE. 


9 


post-office and City Implemeut Depot ’’ were on 
the west side. On the east were another grocery 
and the “ City Hotel.’’ The City Saloon” was 
there too, for, after the manner of its prototype in 
Job’s time, the saloon ‘‘came also.” The “City 
Saloon ” was otherwise known as the “ Enterprise.” 
Over the door it bore, in red letters, the words “ Fire 
Within,” placed there during the fearful cold of that 
first winter. The traveling men, cattle-men, farm- 
ers, men, and boys, American and foreign, who 
warmed themselves by that glowing fire saw no 
hidden meaning in the words. On the north side 
of the square, along with other buildings, was an in- 
stitution known as “ Shiner’s Place.” Let no descrip- 
tion of it go down to posterity, save that it was as 
much worse than the “ Enterprise Saloon” as that was 
worse than the old-time New England cross-roads 
post-office, kept in a private house with white paint 
and green blinds. The less this story tells of “Shi- 
ner’s Place” the better — but remember, it was tliere. 

Around this central square other squares had 
been laid out, on which the dwelling-houses were 
to be built. 

As for the world around you— standing on that 
bluff, two years ago, you would have realized only 
unmeasured distance around you, the wide sky 
above, and the air you breathed. Such a sky ! 
such air ! 

“An extensive tract of land, mostly level, desti- 
tute of trees, and covered with tall, coarse grass.” 


10 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


That is it with the spirit of the prairie left out. 
Noah Webster put nothing in his booh about the 
sweeping autumn fires, or the fresh spring grass, 
sprinkled with violets and dotted with roses. I am 
aware that when one goes, as Dickens went, to the 
edge of a prairie, takes a look, and then hurries 
away, one is apt not to see the beauty or sublimity 
of prairie landscape. The broad expanse is simply 
flat ground. For him there is no beauty in the 
long reaches of russet hue shimmering in the sun- 
light, nor in the ruddy west where the prairie seems 
melting into an amber sky. You must look on 
with an open heart, reverencing the hand that 
spread so fair a world. 

Our bluff shows the same excellent variety of 
sameness as do a hundred others. On three sides 
it slopes gently down to a stream which winds 
about it — a river they call it, where by extra dig- 
nity of nomenclature they make up whatever lack 
they suffer. During the time of the spring rains 
the river rises to meet the torrents that are wearing 
away the bluffs and filling the buffalo-wallows. In 
the hottest summer months the bed of the stream 
becomes bare in places, and opens in great cracks 
which tempt one to search for a cottonwood branch 
with which to measure their depth. There are no 
trees in sight, save a few willows and wild plums 
along the river, and a grove of cottonwoods in the 
distance, near the deep, wholesome green of a corn- 
field. To the westward the prairie rolls away un- 


BOOM CITY AND ITS PEOPLE. 


11 


measured, unendingly. The overland trail creeps 
on and hides in the grass. 

On the western side of the town, between the sta- 
tion and the town, was a flourishing lumber-yard. Its 
young proprietor had just purchased the business. 
In his first spare moments of his first day of posses- 
sion he had carefully surveyed the outside of his 
box-like office. Those walls were decorated with 
the information that lumber, lath, sash, doors and 
blinds, and all other kinds of building materials 
were to be found at that place. The young man 
nailed the sign 

Richard Rogers, 

Lumber, 

over the door of what, for a time, was to be his 
home as well as his place of business. He felt that 
he was an old resident of a young town. 

On that particular morning Richard Rogers 
waited in the station while the telegraph-operator 
traced up a car of lumber which was supposed to 
be on its way West. In the lumber-yard two 
Swedish teamsters were loading a wagon with 
planks. Their movements plainly showed that 
they were at work by the day. In the back part 
of the yard a young man — or, rather, an old boy — 
lounged on a pile of pine siding. He seemed to 
have just energy enough to keep him awake in the 
day-time. High in the air a hen-hawk was scream- 
ing. The boy was thinking how easy it must be 


12 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


to fly, provided one could fly at all. He heard a 
sharp, clear whistle. The notes of Yankee Doo- 
dle seemed to infuse more life into his lazy body, 
for the old boy turned over and, raising himself 
on one elbow, rested his head on his hand. The 
Swedish teamsters began to move as though they 
were at work by the job. 

A young man wearing an immense straw hat 
was coming along the road from the station. As 
he entered the office the whistle changed to song, 
and the words of Home, sweet home,^’ rang out 
in a rich baritone. Some one has said that the 
writing of that song was the ‘‘ frailest thread on 
which fame was ever spun.’’ Ah, but it was a 
strong thread — strong as love! Reaching across 
the Rappahannock, it bound together the hearts of 
the bitterest enemies, for that song went up alike 
from the hearts of men who wore the blue and men 
who wore the gray. 

The boy on the pile of siding sat up and whis- 
tled an accompaniment to the lumber-dealer’s song. 

What’s goin’ on ?” drawled a voice, and a 
human being crawled up from behind the timbers, 
readjusted a piece of a hat, and yawned again. 

This last-mentioned being is well known on the 
frontier ; he is of the genus tramp. The boy kept 
on whistling, and again the man spoke : 

Say, Whistler, where’ll we git our grub?” 

Whistler stopped his musical effort to answer the 
question : ’ 


BOOM CITY AND ITS PEOPLE, 


13 


Don^t know ; Afraid we’ll have to work for it 
in this town. Looks that way to me.” 

The tramp shaded his eyes with ids hands as if 
to get a better view of the author of this heresy. 
Before he seemed to come to any conclusion in re- 
gard to him, two more wagons rattled up to the 
lumber-yard. Richard Rogers came out of the 
office and led the way straiglit to the pile of pine 
siding. 

Hello! what are you people doing here?” was 
his greeting to the tramps. 

Restin’. Travelin’ is powerful hard work,” 
replied the older one. 

Your kind must be,” laughed the lumber-deal- 
er. Well, change is rest. Suppose you work a 
little? Climb on that pile and end those scantlings 
over for these men to load.” 

“ I am too busy,” the man replied. “ I am so 
busy I haint time to sneeze.” 

Whistler had not wholly outlived the effect of 
the song. He climbed on the scantling-pile and 
slowly slid a timber off. 

“ What is your name ?” Mr. Rogers asked as 
the man slowly ended the timber over. 

“ Molasses-in-the-winter-time,” was the drawling 
answer. 

very appropriate name,” said the lumber- 
dealer. Then he sprung on the pile with a stern, 
‘^Get down and take these. I’ll show you how to 
handle lumber.” 


14 


BICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


Whistler dropped to the ground. Inspired by 
the fear of being buried under the timbers, the 
tramps went to work in earnest. When the wagons 
were loaded and driven away Mr. Rogers said, 

Now, if you will help sort this pile I will give 
you your dinner. And if you will work for me 
this afternoon I will pay you all you earn.^’ He 
looked inquiringly at the tramps. 

Doif t know if Whistler is willinY’ said Molas- 
ses-in -the- winter-time. 

‘‘Reckon I will,’’ said Whistler. 

“ Reckon I won’t,” said the other. “Lungs bad. 
Been ordered West for my health. My physician 
said I needed constant change.” 

But even in his weak state he needed dinner, and, 
with Whistler, turned to the wind-tumbled lumber- 
piles. 

Richard Rogers’ soul was full of music that day. 
Unthinkingly he whistled “ Nearer, my God, to 
thee.” Whistler joined him. 

“ Where did you learn that ?” queried the lum- 
ber-dealer. 

“ Used to hang around a place where they played 
it.” 

“ Indeed ! I think we shall be good friends when 
we get acquainted. Suppose we have a whistling- 
match some day soon ?” 

“ I’d like it, if you would and Whistler moved 
a little more briskly. 

“ It is noon now,” said Richard ; “ we will get 


BOOM CITY AND ITS PEOPLE. 


15 


ready for diuner.’^ He closed his watch with a snap 
and placed it in his pocket, then led the way to the 
office. He left the tramps waiting outside. Soon 
he fetched them a basin of water and a towel, which 
the older man declined to use on account of havintr 

O 

weak lungs. 

^‘1^11 do a little rinsing’ said Whistler, by way 
of an apology to his fellow. ^‘Its powerful hot.’’ 

Richard Rogers went along the street toward the 
Iiotel, or wliat was better known in the parlance of 
that age and generation as the hash-house.’’ The 
young man’s steps were long, strong, and quick. 
His tall form looked taller than it really was ; his 
slioulders seemed braced to resist fate ; as he walked 
his head was bent slightly foiwvard and to one side. 
He was not a man to be trifled with. AVhistler felt 
it, and admiration grew within him — a boy’s admi- 
ration for noble manhood. He had a vague idea 
that he would some time equal this lumber-dealer 
in other things besides whistling. He w’ould like 
to sing just that way ; he would like to have that 
air of command. 

In some things the ^^City Hotel ” resembled the 
inn made famous by Irving’s lines: 

“ Here sovereign dirt erects her sable throne, 

The house, the host, the hostess, all her own.” 

Verily, “ details are melancholy ” in that dining- 
room. It was long and low and dingy. The ap- 
pointments of the tables varied with the supposed 


BICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


IG 

refinement and financial standing of the people who 
gathered around them. A table standing across 
one end of the room was covered with a dingy oil- 
cloth. Nicked dishes were arranged upon it. The 
hostler will seat himself tliere presently, and some 
of the class of transients to which Whistler and his 
friend belonged. In the middle of the room was 
a table spread with a white cloth and some care. 
At this table a land-agent, two clerks, a lawyer, 
a man who sold implements, one who speculated 
in town-lots, and the lumber-dealer seated them- 
selves. Across the other end of the room stood a 
table for the other class of transients, traveling men 
and speculators. Food was served by a barefoot 
girl of thirteen. She was bashful and frightened, 
and she kept spilling things. 

There was a great deal of talking done at that 
middle table. The theme, as usual, was this west- 
ern country.^’ The implement-man was telling how 
he should manage if he ever went West again. 
Beefsteak caused a pause in his remarks, and 
WhistleFs voice attracted attention : 

I see they do things on a cash basis here.’’ 

“Think so? Got much cash about you?” que- 
ried Molasses-in-the-winter-time. 

“ There is ^ no tick ’ up there on the wall and 
Whistler pointed at the clock standing on the shelf, 
silent and open-doored. 

The implement-man began again, and Whistler’s 
remarks were lost to the world. 


CHAPTER 11. 


UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 


“ Every human being has a number of possible characters 
in him, which changed circumstances may develop. . . . Were 
1 not what I am, I should have been a sailor.” — Garfield. 



say, partner, don’t work,” said Molasses-in- 


the- winter-time. AVhat’s the use? We’ve 

stuck together a long time now ; let’s keep on.” 

Naw,” said Whistler ; I’m goin’ to see more o’ 
this here town. Reckon I’ll go into business.” 

‘‘Sorry to lose you.” 

“ You’ll hev’ to Stan’ it.” 

“S’ pose so. Well, luck to you and the tramp 
grasped Whistler’s hand, shook it languidly, 
dropped it suddenly, and then shuffled along the 
street, away from Whistler’s life and our story. 

Indolent, ignorant, wicked, music-loving Whis- 
tler moved tow^ard the lumber-yard. 

Richard Rogers had studied the tramps. He 
watched their parting, and sighed as he went back 
to his offlce. Whistler showed few signs of being 
first-class help, but there was much work to be done 
at the lumber-yard that afternoon, and men were 
scarce. Then, too, Richard remembered that he 


18 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


was Ills brother’s keeper. He had some of the 
traits of character which made Iieroes of his stern 
Scotch Presbyterian missionary ancestors. Tlie boy 
with the face of a fallen angel, unpleasiiig make- 
up, musical whistle, and startling profanity appealed 
to his sympathies as frontier mission fields had 
a})pealed to his great-grandfather. Perlmps AVhis- 
tler never had had any temptation to be good. Per- 
haps he might be gotten to work steadily; then 
patient friendship and care might save him. 

The older tramp was a hard case. What was it 
that made him a tramp, sleeping behind a lum- 
ber-pile that bright morning? Was it his own 
sin, or was it the sin of the fathers visited upon 
the children ? Or was it that intangible thing 
which they who own no providence call ^Muck”? 
He had lived through tragedy and comedy enough 
to furnish material for half a dozen modern novels; 
but, like many others who live literature, the tramp 
was for ever separated from the literate. His story 
might have rivalled the Idyl of Red Gidch ; 
though, had you gone to him, my brother scribe, for 
materials for your next sensation story, yon would 
have been met by a wondering stare and a non- 
committal “What are you givin’ us?” The his- 
tory of his life, his history of human hope, hu- 
man love, human sorrow, and, alas ! human sin 
and human despair, would have remained hidden 
in his own heart. “The leaves of memory seem 
to make a mournful rustling in the dark.” This 


VNSOLVED PROBLEMS, 


19 


is particularly true of tlie memories darkened by 
sin. They are dragons which cannot be slain. 
Charmed by his own misery as some natures are 
charmed by the whirlpool rapids, this tramp would 
go on to the end. Richard felt this, though he 
was too busy to frame his feelings into words — 
even tlie unspoken w'ords in which a man thinks. 

That evening Richard Rogers and Whistler were 
alone in the office. It was too far away from other 
buildings for the village sounds to disturb them. 
The late June twilight had settled down, and 
Whistler, tired out by his unaccustomed work, 
stretched himself on a blanket spread on the office 
floor. A hammock hung across the room would 
soon furnish a bed for the lumber-dealer. That 
gentleman attempted to light a lamp. The match 
gave out a strong scent of sulphur, flared in the 
breeze, and then went out. Richard closed the 
door, lighted the lamp, and then sat down beside 
the table. Whistler rolled over lazily and watched 
him. 

Richard was turning over the leaves of a black- 
covered book. One elbow rested on the table; his 
head rested on the palm of his hand; the tips of 
his brown muscular fingers were hidden in the thick 
black hair which, just above his forehead, had a 
tendency to stand straight up. The hair looked 
soft and fine. The lamp-light was shining full 
upon his face, and the line where his hat fitted 
across his forehead showed plainly. Above it the 


20 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN, 


skin was white and fair; below it his face had 
taken on a fine Western tan, through which no flush 
of pink showed in the clieeks. His features were 
good rather than handsome ; his mouth was hidden 
by a heavy black mustache. You would say that 
liis eyes should be black, but when he turned them 
full upon Whistler they proved to be very blue 
ones. There was delicate sensibility in his eyes, 
strength in his features, and a good deal of carburet 
of iron in his blood. The physiognomist would 
turn approvingly to the splendidly-developed body, 
think again of the predominating group of organs 
in the head, and expect the young man to have 
rather an uncomfortable time of it in this world. 
To do much unselfish work, and to sufler keenly 
because he could do no more, he would need all 
that strength of nerve and muscle to balance the 
fire and feeling of his soul. He spoke ; his voice 
was low, as though speaking in confidence. 

“ What do you say asked sleepy Whistler. 

I always read a little before I go to bed. To- 
night I will read aloud to you.’’ 

Whistler muttered, ‘^Go on with your circus;” 
but he opened his eyes wide to listen as Richard 
read the story of a man who died for his fellows. 
He had heard part of that story before — not the 
w^hole. He never had known just how they killed 
Him. Then the lumber-dealer knelt beside his 
office chair and told an unseen Friend all about 
that wicked town — told how they needed God, how 


UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 


21 


they needed help from other Christians — and prayeil 
that he might lead Whistler to his Saviour, that he 
might have courage to do his duty, and that God 
would move the hearts of Eastern Christians to 
send the water of life to those moral deserts. 
Whistler wondered what it all meant. Before the 
prayer was over he went to sleep. 

Richard sat down and studied the boy’s features 
as he slept. There was something pure in his face 
— something which seemed to give one a hint of 
how his sister might look. 

Richard wondered where Whistler got his love 
for sacred music. High up ou Mount Lebanon 
geologists find fossils of fishes carried there when 
the ^‘fountains of the great deep were broken up” 
and floods of water covered the whole earth. In 
what social upheaval was the impression of pure 
songs made on Whistler’s heart? 

Once Whistler had been confined in a jail for 
vagrancy. One Sunday afternoon, instead of the 
minister who had charge of the jail work, a woman 
had come. She was a fair, slender woman, with 
dark eyes and almost golden hair; she was dressed 
in white. She stood in the corridor of the jail, 
where the air-,was foul with tobacco, impure breath, 
and the memory of more impure language, and told 
the story of the man possessed of unclean spirits 
whose name was legion. Perhaps she thought she 
had done no good, for they told her she had been 
casting pearls before swine. But she had tried, and 


22 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


asked God’s blessing on her efforts ; and he lias 
promised that his word shall not return unto him 
void. A few winged words, like seeds of truth, 
had found a lodgment in Whistler’s heart. This 
woman had said, 

“Jesus wants you more than you can possibly 
want anything. No sin nor misfortune, no sorrow, 
nor anything that others can do to you, can keep 
Jesus from you — only yourself. If you send him 
away as did those Gadarenes, he will go. He may 
never come again. But remember he wants you, 
he loves you, he wants to save you.” 

Whistler had never heard the remainder of the 
story. But Bichard Rogers did not know this as 
he sat there and studied the boy’s face and won- 
dered over his history. 

This is the modern historian’s problem : given a 
literature, a philosophy, society, art, group of arts, 
what is the moral condition which produced it? 
what the condition of race,' epoch, circumstance, 
the most fitted to produce this moral condition? 
There are peculiar circumstances which make the 
musician, the author, the painter. There is also a 
combination of circumstances which produces the 
tramp. ^ 

Richard Rogers’ problem was this : here is a boy 
with classic features, fine eyes, shuffling motions, 
a love of music, and who uses startling profanity. 
What has been the home or lack of home, the par- 
ents, the state of society and public morals, which 


UNSOLVED PROBLEMS. 


23 


produced him ? and by what means could the boy 
tramp be best develoj)ed into man ? 

7 It is hard weighing the influence of heredity 
and environment in a tramp\s life. It would make 
both head and heart ache, yet Richard Rogers 
knew in his heart that he would be willing both 
to work and suffer for the tramp Whistler. Love 
for the unfortunate gave the tone-color to his relig- 
ion. It is the tone-color of the Christian religion. 
It was just that which made the world hate that 
man from Nazareth. The world hates the sinner 
and the saint. The man sitting in that lumber 
office thought of that as he watched the boy. He 
remembered tliat his Saviour was once a boy, with 
all a boy’s nature. His was a boy’s nature linked 
to God’s, but none the less human for all of that. 
Through these thoughts came the memory that the 
liead that was crowned with thorns was a golden 
head, perhaps like this boy’s. Do you wonder that 
he understood and loved Whistler as only a young 
man can understand and love a boy ? that he had a 
pleasant sense of having a family, of having some 
one to take care of, as he puzzled over Whistler’s 
history? 

Richard turned again to the black-covered book, 
and read, as lonely men sometimes will, far into the 
night. His library was still in the box in which 
it had traveled West. In the haste of the packer, 
Emerson and Carlyle had been separated by 
Thomas A’Kempis, Macaulay and Bret Harte 


24 


BTCHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


were neighbors, Shakespeare supported a volume 
of sacred hymns, ‘‘David Copperfield’^ and “Ra- 
mona’’ were the closest of friends. Yet their owner 
did not care to take them out. He had reading 
enough in that one book. 

Some one says that an English-speaking person 
banished to a desert island and allowed the privilege 
of taking with him the works of one author where- 
with to relieve the tedium of his solitude would 
invariably choose Shakespeare. Undoubtedly. 
But Richard Rogers had one book, not one author. 
He was richer than Shakespeare could make him. 
He had the beauty of lyrical poetry and an epic 
that was time-worn when Homer was born ; the 
inspiration which gave life to Shakespeare’s women 
and brought Milton’s sublime poetry into being. 
He had, too, the story of the Christian madonna. 


CHAPTER HI. 


THE SALOON AS A BANK. 

“ You deposit your money — and lose it ! 
Your time — and lose it ! 

Your character — and lose it ! 

Your strength — and lose it ! 

Your manly independence — and lose it I 
Your self-control — and lose it ! 

Your home comfort — and lose it ! 

Your wife’s happiness — and lose it ! 
Your children’s happiness— and lose it I 
Your own soul — and lose it !” 



HE Dext morning Wliistler^s ambition suffered 


-L a relapse. He left off piling lumber without 
informing his employer of his purpose to do so. 
He wanted an occupation which promised larger 
returns for less exertion. He found it. Judge of 
Richard’s surprise at learning that his tramp was 
engaged'as chore-boy for the ‘‘Enterprise Saloon.” 
The lumber-dealer figured on bills, having all the 
while a miserable sense of having helped Whistler to 
go to the bad. There seemed to be no way of sav- 
ing the boy, for the boy did not appear to want to 
be* saved. There was little whistling done among 
the lumber-piles that afternoon — a fact which the 
Swedes noticed and remarked upon to themselves. 


25 


26 


EICITARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


The lumberman arose the next morning at an 
unusually early hour. Before breakfast he in- 
dulged in house-cleaning after the masculine plan, 
^vhich consists in sweeping the floor and putting as 
many things out of sight as possible. Whether it 
was that he did not let the sun go down upon his 
discourac^ement or that he saw thiims in a new 
li2:ht, certain it was that the whistlino; revived and 
his voice was unusually musical. He made himself 
very agreeable at the breakfast- table — that is, he 
listened attentively to the stories the implement- 
man told, and sympathized with the grain- dealer’s 
anxiety over the existing corner.” It eame to all 
the boarders with new force that really the lumber- 
dealer was a line fellow, or else his head was level 
in the matter of working up trade. 


GOSPEL MEETING 

AT THE 

IlOGERS LUMBER-YARD, 
SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 

AT 6 O’CLOCK p. M. 
Everybody Invited. 
Everybody Welcome. 
Strangers Cordially Welcomed. 


This notice, nailed to the post-office door, created 
great excitement in Boom City. This excitement 


THE SALOON AS A BANK. 


27 


spread beyond the limits of the city. Farmers 
returning home from town that Saturday night 
carried the more or less pleasing news that lingers 
was really one of the pious kind. 

Nowhere was the interest more strongly mani- 
fested than in the Enterprise Saloon.’’ Tlie pro- 
prietor, Lon Dietrich by name, indulged in philip- 
])io. He was a tall, muscular man, broad-shoul- 
dered and seemingly largely made up of joints. His 
features were coarse and his clieeks sunken as 
though his double teeth were gone; his complexion 
was sallow; he looked dirty; he wore a heavy grizzly 
mustache, and spat tobacc*o-juice profusely. There 
was a forbidding expression in his eyes, and some- 
thing in the look of his hirsute jaw^ made one think 
twice before trifling with liis feelings. Most j)eo- 
ple were afraid of him. Tradition said that cer- 
tain men had died with tlieir boots on down in 
Texas, and that Lon Dietrich knew the story of 
their deaths better than any one else. People to 
deny this were not wanting. They claimed that 
Lon was guilty of only the ^Svild and usual slips” 
of frontier life — that at heart he was a good fellow, 
and did as well as he knew, which, of course, was 
all that could be expected of any man. East or 
West. Still, he was treated with that respectful 
deference which is naturally accorded to the mys- 
terious. Perhaps the story of his crimes may 
have gained credence from the fact that Lon seemed" 
constantly expecting an attack from some quarter. 


28 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


He was always turning to look behind him. This 
habit may have resulted from an uneasy conscience. 
The man was certainly the worse for wear, having 
had one leg broken and improperly set, a trouble- 
some army wound, and frequent attacks of rheuma- 
tism. As years grew upon him he felt that he 
needed the comforts of a home, and looked about for 
a wife. Whether his wooing were aided by forces 
telluric, celestial, or diabolical, certain it was that the 
first marriageable woman whom he met looked with 
favor on his suit. After that he went into the 
saloon business, paradoxical as it may seem. 

‘‘Vat am a gospel meetin’?” asked a German 
farmer who stopped at the saloon because he was 

“Who is goirf to run this meetin’?” queried a 
carpenter prominent in business circles. He was 
thirsty also. 

“Thought they had to hev a preacher to run a 
meetinV’ said another. The heat overcame him. 

“Maybe it ni be something that us fellows can 
run — like a caucus,” said Lon Dietrich. Then he 
became very profane. 

“ I was to one when I was a kid,” said another 
farmer. “They sung and prayed 'and had a big 
organ and a table with roses on it — red and white 
and pink ones. You see, it was a city meetin’; 
our folks were a-visitin’ a cousin there. ’Twas 
sorter nice, but rushin’ to one^s feeliids.” Then, 
as his Yankee tendencies got the better of his inter- 



THE SALOON AS A BANK. 


29 


est in gospel meetings, he changed the subject, 
“ Let’s swap somethin’. Anybody want to trade 
bosses?” 

Not receiving an affirmative answer, he turned 
to the carpenter, saying, ^‘Lemme see your jack- 
knife.” 

The trade did not promise to be exciting. 

“Where’ll Rogers git his roses and organ?” 
asked Lou with fine sarcasm and coarse })rofanity. 

The man who sold implements had joined the 
group. He said his say next : 

“I sliould smile to know who’ll do the praying 
for 'em. Do you suppose Rogers can pray?” 

Whistler was the only one present who had heard 
Rogei's pray, and he volunteered no information. 

“ 1 tell you these things may be all right back 
East, but you can’t make ’em stick out here,” said 
one who had not spoken before. 

“I tell you the Lord haint no business in Boom 
City,” cried Lon, his voice rising in his excitement. 
“ This town wa’n’t started that way, and, now as us 
fellows has the start, its playin’ it pretty low down 
on us to try to jump our claims.” 

And so, having deposited their money and a share 
of their manly inde])endence in the saloon, these 
men went their way, in duty bound to hold the sa- 
loon-keeper’s opinion. 


CPI AFTER IV. 


THE LESSOX OF THE CACTUS-BLOSSOM. 

“O fearful heart and troubled brain, 

Take hope and strength from this, 

Tliat nature never hints in vain, 

Nor prophecies amiss. 

Her wild birds sing the same swxet stave, 

Her lights and airs are given 
Alike to playground and tlie grave, 

And over both is heaven.” 

NCE again the miracle of sunrise had been 



V' wroiig:ht for the world. The air seemed full 
of liffht refracted from the walls of the citv of the 
great King. Though earth were marked by the 
trail of the serpen^ the stillness of Eden then rest- 
ed on the plains. 

Richard Rotrers left the dintjv breakfast-table 
and paused a moment on the hotel steps. He 
glanced about the streets tliat are so totally unlike 
anything but Western village streets. Then his eyes 
sought the prairie, lying in the })ure sunlight, and 
he muttered, “ ‘ Only man is vile.^ 

A shrill laugh came through the windows of 
Shiner’s Place.” The door of the ^‘Enterprise 
Saloon ” stood open. Somebody was swearing in- 
side. 


30 


THE LESSON OF THE CACTUS-BLOSSOM. 31 


The young man was growing very anxious over 
that gospel meeting. A great many disagreeable 
sayings had been thrown at him since that notice 
had been nailed to the post-office door. He knew 
he should be held up to the keenest criticism, for 
his daily life lay very near to those people. He 
had a vag-iie idea that trouble of some kind would 
come from that meeting. It was not a personal 
fear: it was rather a fear that something would 
happen which would lower the moral standard of 
the place. Few things happened which did not 
lower it. 

I)o you wonder that lie was almost discouraged ? 
It sometimes seems a little discouraging, this being 
the only working Christian in a town of three hun- 
dred souls. How does this happen in Christian 
Anlerica? 

There is a large floating population on the fron- 
tier. Many people do not like the restraints of 
older towns. They are always going West. They 
•have been away from religious influences a long 
time. Some of them have fallen into evil ways. 
When evil gets the start, drinking, gambling, and 
their accompaniments draw a certain class of peojile. 
Many speculators go to the frontier hoping to make 
money and then return to their old homes to enjoy 
it. This class cares little for the permanent im- 
provement of the new towns. There is a saying, 
“Each man for himself, and the devil for us all.’’ 
Foreigners come here to make homes for them- 


32 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


selves ami their children. They are met by the 
ever-vigilant saloon. Instead of becoming free 
citizens, they enter the worst of slavery. I know 
of nothing but the gospel- of Christ that can keep 
the seeds of anarchy from sprouting in such soil.^ 

It is easy to talk of what ought to be done ; but 
who will do it and who will help do it? Dr. 
Beecher said, “Now is the nick of time. In mat- 
ters which reach into eternity now is always the 
nick of time. One man now is worth a hundred 
fifty years hence. One dollar now is worth a hun- 
dred then. Let us be up and doing before it is too 
late.’^ 

But time was going on in Boom City. Harvests 
of more kinds than one were getting ready for the 
reaper. For miles, in each direction the only 
straight-forward, outspoken influence for good 
was in Richard Rogers and his songs of purity, 
home, and heaven. Thinking of these things, he 
set out for a walk across the prairie, feeling that 
if he were once out of sight of lumber-piles, piue 
buildings, and soddies, the wide prairie and the 
bending sky would form a sanctuary, and that God 
would meet him there. Five miles out, he paused 
and found, as David did, a habitation for the 
mighty God in the “ fields and the woods.’’ Tlie 
smiling, sunlit prairies lay before him in all their 
pristine beauty — a world of waving grass with the 
silver river creeping through it. Over the river, 
liis burnished coat flashing many-hued in the sun- 


THE LESSON OF THE CACTUS-BLOSSOM. 33 


light, a kingfisher poised ; suddenly the bird darted 
downward, then came up with a fish in his beak ; 
lighting on a dead limb of a willow tree, he ate 
his prey. The kingfisher is not a sympathetic 
bird, and his evil laugh made harsh notes in the 
summer anthem as he fiewaway to fish farther down 
the stream. A little way otf, a woodpecker sounded 
a rattling drum-call on a cottonwood tree. The 
sounds of insects and the song of the lark were the 
sweeter notes in nature’s diapason. 

Richard took a small book from his pocket. It 
could hardly have been his hand that marked the 
passage he chose — the ink was so faded. He read : 

‘‘ The Lord bless thee, and keep thee ; 

“ The liord make his face shine upon thee, and 
be gracious unto thee ; 

The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and 
give thee peace.” 

He turned a few leaves and came to other marks, 
and read : 

And when the cloud tarried long upon the tab- 
ernacle many days, then the children of Israel kept 
the charge of the Lord, and journeyed not.” 

After that he was willing to live in Boom City 
and work for his Master right there, even though 
he worked alone. He knelt and prayed. Perhaps 
you might not call it prayer. It was just the up- 
going of his weariness and longing, such as any 
business man, Christian or pagan, more or less dis- 
couraged, might experience, almost unconsciously, 
3 


84 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


while resting his liead for a moment on his office 
desk. There is a wave-motion in spiritual progress. 
This was the ebb of helplessness before the incom- 
ing of strength of nerve and soul needed for that 
gospel meeting. 

Try to fancy that this is your Western boy. The 
same trials came to him that come to your Charlie . 
or Fred or Johnny. They are good boys, you 
know ; they are grand men, striving to do right. 
Your boy, then, is kneeling there alone on tlie 
prairie, praying. There is no human being that 
can cheer or helj) him. The only God that is recog- 
nized near him is Mammon. Why shall not your 
boy worship Mammon? Yes, tliere is one other 
power recognized there. It is what Carlyle calls 
“ the most authentic incarnation of the infernal 
principle of our time’’ — whiskey. 

Richard’s hand touched something like a him- 
dred needle-points. There, close beside him, was 
a prairie cactus, small and round and thick -set with 
sharp spines. Out of its forbidding heart there 
grew three lovely pink blossoms with golden hearts. 
His inspiration had come. Bending over the cac- 
tus, he learned from its flowers the secret of his 
work for God and humanity in the \yest. His 
faith grew strong and his heart hopeful. 

The fibrous cactus-roots reach far into the sandy 
soil. He loosened them and carried the cactus 
home, and, after planting it in an old tin can, 
placed it on his office table. He then sat down 


THE LESSON OF THE CACTUS^BLOSSOM. 35 


to prepare for the gospel meeting. He had carried 
liome the pink blossoms, hut he could not cany 
home the peace and purity of the prairies save as 
he remembered that 

“ A living, loving, lasting word. 

My listening ear, believing, heard 
While bending down in prayer: 

Like a sweet breeze that none can stay, 

It passed my soul upon its way. 

And left a blessing there. 

And joyful thoughts that come and go 
By paths the holy angels know 
Encaniped around my soul.” 


CHAPTER V. 


WHICH SHALL PROSPER f 


“ Now, looking backward to the long hours ended, 

I wondered why I feared them as they came ; 

Each brought the strength on which its task depended, 
And so my prayer was answered just the same. 

Now, with new faith, I pray 
Strength for each day. 

“For in the one just closed Fve learned how truly 
God gives us help according to our need ; 

Sufficient for each hour it cometh newly. 

If we but follow where his teachings lead, 

Believing, when we pray 
Strength for each day. 

“For he who felt the load which we are bearing. 

Who walked each step along the path we tread. 

Is ever for his children caring. 

And keeps the promise made us when he said, 

‘ ril give thee, all the way. 

Strength for each day.’ ” 

HERE was no other show in town that day, 



J- and Boom City people wanted to be amused. 
It was pleasant to walk out at sunset, to breathe the 
invigorating air, and watch the brilliant painting in 
the western sky ; so tired mothers and restless chil- 
dren went to the gospel meeting. Business men went 


36 


WHICH SHALL PROSPER f 


37 


because they liked Rogers and were willing to do 
him a favor. Going to his meeting was as cheap 
as any way of pleasing him. The boys went be- 
cause boys are always on hand when there is any- 
thing new going on. 

Lon Dietrich was there because he lived with his 
fingers on the public pulse, so to speak. Perhaps 
there had been as many men as usual in his saloon 
that day, but they drank less beer. If the meeting 
threatened business, something must be done. He 
signified his contempt for the whole thing by ap- 
pearing in his shirt-sleeves and a week’s growth of 
beard. His wife hung on his arm. She kept up 
the credit of his house in a green silk dress. Lon 
treated her with the greatest respect — as he counted 
respect. No one in Boom City ever heard him ad- 
dress her other than as Mrs. Dietrich.” She was 
a plump little woman with large dark eyes and 
heavy hair. She never seemed to have a mind of 
her own, and led one into all sorts of painful con- 
jectures as to how she got along before she had a 
husband to decide for her. That Sunday she 
seemed frightened. She had seen fights, and dread- 
ed them. She feared there might be trouble before 
the meeting was over. 

Three-year-old Robbie danced about his parents. 
He had his mother’s eyes, and his hair curled pret- 
tily. He stood on the board-pile on which his par- 
ents seated themselves. 

After the singing began some people from Shi- 


38 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN, 


ner’s Place’’ lounged down within hearing. They 
sat down on the grass and listened. 

Strangers came slowly. Perhaps they did not 
understand this town, and did not wish to com- 
promise their future by a blunder. Charles Dudley 
Warner says, The Western man is an Easterner 
or a Southerner let loose.” It takes forty-eight 
hours for the loosening process to be completed 
and for the Easterner or Southerner to be at his ease 
in the West; therefore the air of anxious inquiry 
on the part of the strangers. 

Near the river, a little to the south, a party of 
emigrants were encamped beside their prairie- 
schooners. The canvas covering of one of the 
wagons was drawn back, leaving the interior ex- 
posed to view. The horses, lariated near, were 
feeding greedily. The cow that was accompanying 
the party had waded into the river, and stood there 
bawling as though she were homesick. Around 
the camp the children seemed enterprising enough 
to be native Nebraskans. Quite a party of them 
came over to the lumber-yard and climbed on top 
of the highest board-pile. When occasion offered 
they sang at the top of their voices. Then their 
seniors saw fit to come over to take care of them. 
One woman remained behind ; she stood near the 
wagons, holding a baby in her arms, and listened. 

A wagon-load of Swedish settlers drove into 
the lumber-yard. They sat in their wagon and 
watched the service with apparent interest. 


WHICH SHALL PROSPER f 


39 


Richard Rogers shook bauds with everybody and 
answered all their queries, himself being too busy 
to ask questions. He passed some hymn-books to 
the crowd, and then stepped upon a crate of sash 
and sang Where is my boy to-uight?” The song 
was uew tlieu — none of these people had heard it. 
The strength and sweetness of Richard’s voice sur- 
prised even the old residents on whom lie had used 
it unsparingly for months. The children listened 
open-mouthed. The singer paused ; the only sounds 
in the air were the good-night twitter of the birds 
and the sweeping of the evening wind. Were the 
hearts of those rough men, weary women, and un- 
taught children touched by the song? No; they 
were hushed by the magnetism of the singer and 
charmed by the novelty ; but Lon Dietrich spat 
tobacco-j u ice persistently. 

Then Richard selected hymns which some of 
the people must have known from childhood. 
They are linked with the memory of every Chris- 
tian home. Other voices joined his in singing 

Sweet hour of prayer” and Refuge.” 

Perhaps some one has a hymn he would like 
to sing?” said Richard. I am sure your choice 
would please us all.” 

Everybody looked at everybody else, and all 
expected that some one else would speak, until the 
stranger with the good old-fashioned bass voice 
said. 

Brother Rogers, suppose we try ^ New Haven ’ ?” 


40 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


The stranger’s wife joined with a decided alto, 
and as another stranger approached, a strong tenor 
voice took up the hymn at the words. 

Oh, let me from this day 
Be wholly thine.” 

Had Ricliard Rogers lingered about the hotel 
that day, instead of wandering off on the prairies 
by himself, he would have learned what, by that 
time, every one else knew : that the tenor was a 
young doctor who thought of locating in Boom 
City ; that the bass and alto were man and wife — 
the man a carpenter who was sure of getting work 
in the growing town ; the wife a woman of decided 
views. The magical word brother ” gave Richard 
* a strong desire to grasp the basso’s hand, and he 
knew by the meaning in the tenor’s voice that their 
souls had 


“ Chosen the same road, 

Through Joy or sorrow, light or gloom.” 

All the while his own voice was going on ; 

“May thy rich grace impart 
Strength to my fainting heart. 

My zeal inspire ; 

As thou hast died for me. 

Oh, may my love to thee 
Pure, warm, and changeless be — 

A living fire.” 

While the next verse was being sung Richard 


WHICH SHALL PROSPER? 


41 


went forward and grasped the tenor’s hand. The 
words lie said were, 

“Shall we give them a duet?” 

“ Yes ; it would help.” 

This was their introduction. The two men 
moved back to the crate of sash, and reached it as 
they sang the words, 

“ Oh, bear me safe above, 

A ransomed soul.” 

They did some whispering while they fluttered the 
leaves of their hymn-books, and the people won- 
dered what would come next. The next was that 
Robbie Dietrich yelled, 

“Rogie, sing more; sing more ’lone.” 

Lon chanced to like Robbie’s tone of authority, 
and patted his head approvingly. The tenor 
smiled and sat down on the crate of sash. Rich- 
ard opened his book, and there was something in 
his voice higher and deeper than himself as these 
Avords rang out : 

“ One offer of salvation 

To all the world make known ; 

The only sure foundation 
Is Christ the Corner-stone. 

No other name is given, 

No other other way is known ; 

’Tis Jesus Christ, the first and last — 

He saves, and he alone.” 

Sometimes, when deeply stirred, men of sympa- 


42 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


tlietic, emotional nature sing as he sang then. The 
rendering was as far as possible from the some- 
what jingling notes of the song. A sense of the sol- 
emn grandeur of the message thrilled through his 
soul, and, half unconsciously, he changed the rhythm, 
added harmony from the intensity of his feeling, 
and ga\^ the hymn the tone-color of his soul : 

“ One only door of heaven 
Stands open wide to day ; 

One sacrifice is given : 

'Tis Christ, the living way.” 

The audience was breathless with interest ; the 
voice seemed to rouse the good in them all — all but 
Lou Dietrich. 


“ My only song and story 
Is, ‘ Jesus died for me 
My only hope of glory, 

The cross of Calvary.” 

Then Richard opened his favorite book and read 
the story of the workks great Tragedy; next he 
folded his hands over the book and offered the first 
public prayer that ever went up to God from Boom 
City. Tlie prayer was short and earnest ; the 
words were such as we speak to a dear friend close 
beside us. When it was over Robbie again shouted, 
in an authoritative tone. 

Sing more ! sing more 

The authority in Robbie’s tone was less pleasing 
to his father than before, and met a sharp rebuke. 


WHICH SHALL PROSPER f 


43 


Mrs. Dietrich appeared frightened. Robbie turned 
liis face away from his father, while his features 
became surprisingly active, and thus gave expres- 
sion to the rebellion in his soul. The tenor smiled 
on Robbie, and Richard said, 

“Yes, Robbie, we will sing until you are satis- 
fied.^’ 

Dr. AYilliam Harvey and Richard Rogers stood 
side by side on the crate of sash, their voices blend- 
ing as they sang : 

“ In the silent midnight watches, 

List— thy bosom’s door ! 

How it knocketh, knocketh, 

Knocketh evermore ! 

Say not ’tis thy pulse’s beating : 

’Tis thy heart of sin ; 

’Tis thy Saviour knocks and crieth, 

‘ Kise and let me in.’ 

“ Death comes down with reckless footsteps 
To the hall and hut ; 

Think you death will tarry knocking 
When the door is shut? 

Jesus waiteth, waiteth, waiteth, 

. But the door is fast ; 

Grieved, away thy Saviour goeth ; 

Death breaks in at last. 

“ Then ’tis time to stand entreating 
Christ to let thee in, 

At the gate of heaven beating, 

Wailing for thy sin. 

Nay ! alas, thou guilty creature, 

Hast thou, then, forgot ? 

Jesus waited long to know thee ; 

Now he knows thee not.” 


44 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


Robbie had decided in his small mind that it was 
safer to dictate from beyond his father’s reach. He 
had slid to the ground, made his way to AVhistler, 
and been helped to an even higher perch than the 
one from which he had issued his previous orders. 
He shouted again, 

Rodgie, sing more ’lone !” 

Dr. Harvey sat down with the air of a man who 
knows his services are unnecessary. Robbie leaned 
against Whistler while he listened to What shall 
the harvest be?” When it was over he gravely 
bestowed an approving nod upon the singer, and 
gave no more orders. Then they sang old hymns, 
and the people joined. The meeting closed with 
My country, ’tis of thee,” followed by the Dox- 
ology. The people moved slowly homeward. 

Dr. Harvey and Mr. and Mrs. Garrett (the new 
carpenter and his wife) lingered a little to assure 
Mr. Rogers that the meeting had been a great suc- 
cess. They were much pleased with the place; he 
could count on their help in any good work, should 
they decide to remain in Boom City. The four 
stood for some minutes, half looking at the sunset, 
half talking of the people going along the streets. 

The sun sank out of sight. Across the horizon 
stretched a pale blue band ; above its amber lights, 
higher still, red and jnirple mingled. Off to the 
north, in solemn stateliness, lay sombre cumuli ; 
at the south amber and crimson faded into a clear 
blue sky. 


WHICH SHALL PROSPER f 


45 


The people iu the lumber-yard turned their eyes 
from this magic picture to Lon Dietrich going along 
in advance of the crowd. He had a copy of gospel 
hymns in his hands. As he walked he tore the 
binding through and through, scattering the leaves. 
Robbie ran shouting after them, and caught a clus- 
ter in his hands. The wind took up the remainder, 
and they waved the liquor power’s defiance to the 
gospel. 

The people at the lumber-yard saw it all ; they 
stood a moment, gazing in amazement ; then Dr. 
Harvey grasped Richard’s hand and silently turned 
away. Mr. and Mrs. Garrett followed his example. 

Richard ‘stood against the lumber-pile where 
they left him until the colors faded from the west 
and there was cnly a low-lying light cloud across 
the sky where it met the prairie-grasses. He was 
there when darkness gathered. Later, when the 
moon came up and softened the harsh and ugly 
village features with a mellow light, he went into 
his office and locked the door. 

The reaction had. come, as it must come after 
every noble effort; but the ladder may reach from 
high heaven down to our troubled pillows, as it did 
to the pillar of stone at Bethel. And not ‘^only 
in dreams is the ladder thrown.’’ Faith sees it in 
waking moments. 


CHAPTER VI. 


MASKING THE BUSINESS FROM THE COMMON 
EYE. 

“ How Satan laughed, 

As over the bar the young man quaffed 
The beaded liquor ! for the demon knew 
The terrible work that drink would do ” 

“ The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon 
him with his teeth. 

“ The Lord shall laugh at him ; for he seeth that his day is 
coming .” — The Bible. 

TT’S all right to serve the Lord back East; if a 

J- feller has a gift that way ; but the Lord haint 
any followers in Boom City.” 

He calf t make it stick out here.” 

You’d better say the Lord didn’t have any fol- 
lowers here before he came.” 

‘^That doctor is another. He haint so much 
nerve as Rogers: he’s too white-livered; but he’s 
pious, all the same.” 

These were a few of the opinions that were voiced 
in the Enterprise Saloon that Sunday night. Lon 
Dietrich said nothing. It seemed that tearing the 
hymn-book had satisfied the needs of his nature as 
far as vindictiveness went. A few of his admirers 


46 


MASKING THE BUSINESS. 


47 


made fierce threats as to Mdiat would liappen to 
Rogers if he did not let up on those meetings. 
After the saloon was closed Lon consulted Whis- 
tler : 

I say it must be stopped. If we let him keep 
on, he will spoil our biznus. You see he will have 
a preacher out here, an’ a church by aud by, and 
public sentiment will git agin us. It’ll spile our 
biznus. That tenderfoot carpenter is one of the 
meetin’ kind. He won’t git over it, nuther. His 
wife ’ll be a mighty uncomfortable woman to have 
in town if things don’t go to suit her. I know 
that by the cut of her jaw. Now we’ve got a biz- 
nus that’s easy — one that don’t require much capi- 
tal to run it, an’ we can git rich on it. I’ll tell 
you what : a fire as might have come from some- 
body’s pipe, or have been set by lightning, would 
just clean that lumber-yard out slick, and nobody 
to blame. It’s the only way we can git'rid of him. 
He can’t start again — hain’t got lucre enough. If 
that happens, I’ll make you partner in my biznus, 
and nothing said. I hain’t mean in money matters 
— never was. There ’ll be a storm before mornin’. 
It’s best to watch your chances. Here is a glass 
of somethin’ as ’ll stir up your wits on it.” 

Lon measured the liquid carefully, for Whistler 
must have just enough to make a fiend of him, 
and no more. The boy did not drink because he 
liked whiskey — he had uo natural taste for it — but 
there was hardly devil enough in his nature to 


48 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN, 


commit that crime unassisted. He knew that glass 
contained liquid devil, for the boy was a natural 
philosopher. He had ample opportunity to judge 
of the effects of whiskey on the human nervous 
system, at the same time experiencing some of its 
secondary effects in his own person. He had de- 
cided that as a steady business it did not pay to 
drink. However, this was an unusual occasion. 
The boy was ambitious. He desired to wear a 
boiled shirt and a red necktie, and to receive admir- 
ing glances such as the human family bestow upon 
congressmen and prize-fighters. Here was the way 
opening before him — a partnership in a paying 
business, and perhaps unlimited glory beyond. He 
drank the whiskey, and went out into the night 
with his blood on fire for a wicked deed. 

Whistler took the street through the village lead- 
ing away from the lumber-yard. He would walk 
out of town, and then skulk along by the river and 
approach the yard from the direction in which lay 
the least danger of being seen. Having swallowed 
the liquid devil, Whistler was willing, like his 
prototype, to go upon his belly in the dust. 

The boy had lain out of doors many a night ; he 
knew that the clear depth of the sky, the peculiar 
nearness of the stars, and the sullen flashes of elec- 
tricity at the horizon meant a rushing storm of wind 
and rain, terrible with the flash of lightning and 
the cannonade of thunder. He knew that fires 
frequently break out during such storms, and it 


MASKING THE BUSINESS. 


49 


stood to reason that the lumber-yard would be the 
most natural place for lightning to strike. What 
mattered it that the prairie lay green and smiling 
around him, and the near-seeming stars were out- 
posts of heaven ? There was nothing in the clear 
dome of star-spangled blue to stir his feelings of 
reverence. Hell had two doors open in Boom City, 
and he was the agent. 

Off in the west the pleasant light cloud was 
changing. It now seemed resting on a sombre 
floor. Across the sky, scarcely obscuring a star, 
cirrus clouds were hanging like disheveled locks of 
hair. Whistler noted the change and smiled fiend- 
ishly. That kind of a storm was suited to his 
work. He stopped to gather some dry bunch-grass 
for kindlings. At his feet lay a piece of paper. 
He took that up too. He crept along under cover 
of the bluff by the river, then crawled like a snake 
to the lumber-yard, and sat down behind a pile of 
two-by -fours to wait the coming of the storm. 

The sky lost none of its serenity, save at the 
west the sombre stratus grew inky. The moon 
kept grandly on her way. Whistler wondered if 
he could see to read by her light, as thousands of 
wiser and better people have wondered during long 
nights spent on the plains. He smoothed the 
paper out. It was a leaf from the gospel hymns 
that Lon Dietrich had destroyed that day. The 
boy slowly spelled out the words What shall the 
harvest be 2 ” 


4 


50 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


He had no refined literary taste, and was slow to 
perceive the beauty of figurative speech. But the 
storm was slow in coming on, and he must have 
somethino- to do. He struck a match on the tim- 

o 

l)er, and, carefully shielding it in his hands, spelled 
through the first verse. The light flickered and 
went out. He lit another, and spelled out the next 
verse and the refrain : 

“Oh, wliat shall the harvest he ? 

Oh, what shall the harvest be 

Another match, and he began the third verse. 
Then he realized that the words might have a bear- 
ing on the matter in hand : 

“Sowing the seed of a lingering pain. 

Sowing the seed of a maddened brain. 

Sowing the seed of a tarnished name, 

Sowing the seed of eternal shame.’’ 

Whistler cared very little about the tarnished 
name and the eternal shame, but he understood the 
lingering pain and the maddened brain. He had 
seen a great deal of that sort of thing, and expe- 
rienced some of its effects in his own person. Then 
Robbie had leaned against his chest, with one arm 
around his neck, while Richard sang that hymn. 
There is a wonderful illustrating force in nestling 
little forms and soft arms. Whistler forgot about 
firing the lumber-yard. Turning the paper over, 
he struck another match and read : 


MASKING THE BUSINESS. 


61 


“ One offer of salvation 

To all the world make knownj^ 

He understood that, having heard Richard Rog- 
ers sing it ; but the match flickered and the flame 
went out in sulphurous smoke. The wind had 
blown some of the evil out of his brain, for he 
carefully set his foot on the spent match. He lit 
another and read on : 

“ The only sure foundation 
Is Christ the Corner-stone. 

No other name is given, 

No other way is known ; 

’Tis Jesus Christ, the first and last — 

He saves, and he alone.” 

He believed that too. He remembered the story 
he had heard in jail, and the one Richard Rogers 
had read of liow they crucified Him, and how he 
rose again the third day and walked among the 
people, and how he comforted his disciples : 

And he led them out as far as to Bethany ; and 
he lifted up his hands and blessed tUem. 

And it came to pass while he blessed them, he 
was parted from them, and was carried up into 
heaven. 

‘‘And they worshiped him, and returned to Jeru- 
salem with great joy.^^ 

The wind was dying out now. The lights lasted 
longer; but Whistler carefully placed his foot on 
each spent match. He strained his strong young 
eyes to spell out the remainder of the hymn ; 


52 


BICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


“ One only door of heaven 
Stands open wide to-day ; 

One sacrifice is given : 

’Tis Christ, the living way. 

My only song and story 
Is, ‘ Jesus died for me 

My only hope of glory, 

The cross of Calvary.” 

There came rush of wind, and timbers rattled 
around him. He started to rise. A ‘Hwo-by- 
eight was flung from the pile beside him, and, 
striking one leg, pimped him to the ground. An- 
other timber fell from the pile ; one end struck his 
chest and then rolled off. The blow was a cruel 
one, and Whistler fainted. The pelting of rain in 
his face brought him to consciousness. The rat- 
tling of timbers was drowned by the roar of thun- 
der. The world seemed wrapped in intense sheets 
of lightning, while blue and yellow lights played 
about every lumber-pile. Utter darkness followed, 
while hail beat upon the wretched AVhistler. The 
young tramp was in the hands of the God of 
storms. 

An hour later the moonlight lay full and splen- 
did upon the drenched prairies. With painful 
effort Whistler shoved the timber from his broken 
limb ; slowly he crawled along the wagon-track to 
the office, and knocked on the door. Richard 
Rogers opened the door, lifted him up, and car- 
ried him in. 


CHAPTER VII. 


DA YLIGHT UPON IT. 

“ Paint me no Alpine scenery, 
Neither blue Italian skies, 

But paint me instead, I pray thee, 
The blue of my father’s oyes. 
Paint me no saintly madonna, 
P.iint me no womanly grace, 

But paint me, oh, paint me, artist. 
The lines of my mother’s face.” 



R. HARVEY aud Richard Rogers stood in 


JLy the lumber-yard, near to the office, just as 
the dawn began to creep into the eastern sky. 

I had almost decided not to settle in Boom 
City,’’ said the doctor, but it will be weeks before 
I can leave him. You have some rather tough 
peoj^le in town, I see.” 

‘‘ Yes, there are two classes of people here,” 
Richard replied. ^^The chief aim of one class is 
to get rich as soon as possible — in any way possible. 
The sole purpose of the other class seems to be to 
get drunk as soon as they can, and stay so as long 
as they can. I don’t belong to either class — don’t 
fit in anywhere.” 

There are two classes and the lumber-dealer. 


53 


54 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN, 


I will join your class, at least until I can get away 
from my patient/^ 

“Not a very paying patient, if I am any jmlge 
of patients/’ 

“Not a very interesting guest. If I mistake 
not, you have the worst of the bargain ; or shall 
you send him to the hospital?” — this last with a 
quizzical smile. 

“ It would cost too much to get him to a hospital. 
Besides that, Whistler is my neighbor.” 

“ And mine too,” added the doctor. “ I shall 
write my wife to come on, for the Master has work 
for me here. Slie will answer that it is pretty safe 
to work where he wants us.” This was said with 
that serious air with which the early Methodists 
spoke of God’s leadings. 

“Do you think your wife will like this place?” 

“ I think she will like this climate. I wish I 
could rent a house ; but there is not even a vacant 
room in town. I shall have to buy a lot and build 
something for a home and office combined. You 
may figure on a bill for a cottage something like 
that one ; it must contain about four rooms,” said 
the doctor, indicating the cottage with his thumb. 

Richard took a shingle from a broken bunch, 
laid it on a board-pile, and began to sharpen his 
pencil. 

“What about that fellow in there?” the doctor 
asked. * 

“ As soon as there is any one stirring I will get 


DAYLIGHT UPON IT. 


55 


a single bed and put it up in the office. We can 
lift him on it. I can take care of him.^^ 

What about business?’’ 

He is right where my business is. He won’t 
need much care — he is not used to it. But what 
do you think of him ?” 

“I don’t have much fear about his leg” — the 
doctor moved a step nearer to the board-pile and 
leaned one elbow upon it — but his system is all 
out of order. He has had a severe nervous shock ; 
those ribs are in an ugly way, and if fever sets in 
with those internal injuries, it will go hard with 
the boy.” 

After all, I feel easier about him than I have 
before since he has been in town.” 

Richard put his knife in his pocket and made a 
straight mark on the shingle. 

Then his case required heroic treatment?” 

Yes; but tell me liow he came to be mixed up 
with my lumber-piles.” 

He had been drinking; perhaps he meant mis- 
chief. Where did you say he worked?” 

In that saloon over there.” Ricliard laid the . 
shingle on the board-pile and stuck the pencil over 
his ear as he spoke. 

I see.” 

^^Sodo I.” 

The men looked at each other for a moment ; 
then the doctor tifrned again to his patient, while 
Ricliard went among the lumber-piles. Presently 


56 


mCHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


the doctor found him standing with the fingers of 
one hand thrust inquiringly into his vest-pocket 
and his other liand grasping his hat, as if that action 
helped him think. Before him was a pile of tum- 
bled scantling and pine siding. The doctor came 
close beside him, looked a moment, then laid one 
arm around Richard’s shoulders. The spot told its 
own story. The wind had been merciful, and had 
formed the timbers into a sort of an arch over the 
place where Whistler had crouched. There was 
the gathered bunch-grass, some of it stuffed be- 
tween the boards; there were the burned matches, 
half trodden out of sight; there was the page from 
the gospel hymns lying damp and pulpy on the 
grass, but showing on its upper side the words, 

“ One offer of salvation 

To all the world make known.” 

Richard picked it up and spread it carefully out 
on his hand. 

That means poor Whistler,” he said slowly. 

That means poor Whistler,” the doctor repeat- 
ed, with his arm still around Richard’s shoulder. 

They went back to the office. Whistler had sunk 
into a morphine sleep. As the doctor bent to feel 
his pulse the boy muttered, “Jesus Christ, the first 
and the last.” Perhaps it was the first time he 
had ever taken that name upon his lips without 
an oath. They watched him a few minutes, and 
then went out of doors. 


DAYLIGHT UPON IT. 57 

There is no use in going back to the hotel again 
until breakfast is ready/’ said the doctor. 

Stay here and help me enjoy the sunrise/’ said 
Richard. 

‘‘The air here is glorious/’ the doctor asserted as 
he climbed the board-pile and sat down. “I shall 
ask my wife to come right on. I left her visiting 
friends in Iowa. She is not well this summer, and 
I trust this air will do great things for her.” 

“Where will you live? You can’t build a 
cottage in a week,” said Richard as he again picked 
up the shingle and began to draw the plan of a 
cottage. 

“Oh, my wife can make a home out of my room 
at the hotel. I want her opinion on building-lots 
and plans. I shall buy a horse and carriage, and 
Ave will ride a good deal.” 

“ If you have a wife who can make a home out 
of one of those closets at the hotel, you can’t sym- 
pathize Avith us poor, homeless wretches,” Richard 
observed Avhile A^ery busy with his plan. 

“Not if the Avretchedness is of your oavu choos- 
ing. What is to hinder your having a Avife and 
love and a home of your oavu ? 

“ ‘ And as for love, God Avot I love not yet ; 

But love I shall, God willing.’ ” 

And the doctor added : 

“ Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, 

And men below and saints above; 

For love is heaven, and heaven is love.” 


58 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


Not very practical young business men, to be 
quoting Tennyson and Scott before breakfast. 
Souietinies poets are practical. 

llichard went on with his plan, and the doctor 
surveyed him thoughtfully. He expressed his opin- 
ion soon : 

You are a tolerably good-looking young man. 
I should think you might make yourself agree- 
able to the ladies. You don’t expect some young 
woman to marry you up without any effort on your 
part, do you ?” 

‘Hlardly and Richard laughed. ^H’ll tell you 
the real trouble, doctor : I can’t find her. I sup- 
])ose my wife is somewhere, but I have searched for 
five vears. I seem to be no nearer to finding: her 
than when I began to look for her. I am very 
much in earnest about it, especially since I came to 
‘this homeless. Godless country. You have no idea 
of the anxiety with which I watch the new-comers, 
wondering if she has come yet.” 

^^So you expect her to come West, do you?” 

I hope so and Richard held up the plan. 
sometimes think I could almost worship any girl 
w^ho could be a true Avoman here.” 

Don’t be too sure of that and the doctor took 
the plan. I wish my wife had a sister.” 

‘^So do I. Can’t you think of some cousin, or 
hasn’t your wife an intimate friend ?” 

‘‘1 can’t think of just the right one noAV. It’s 
rather oiit of my line ; but I will speak to Lena 


DAYLIGHT UPON IT. 


59 


about it. Most women are great on such things. 
There were some nice-looking girls at the meeting 
last night — they came in that farm-wagon. My 
wife would want more closets in this house — 
women always want closets.’^ 

‘‘ Could put a closet right there. Yes, they are 
Swedish. I guess they are mighty nice girls, too. 
One of them in particular is just the sort of a 
woman to make some young fellow a grand good 
wife, but she is not her^ sweet and faithful as she 
may be.^’ 

‘‘Tell me about your ideal woman.’’ 

“ One who is strong in the qualities which I 
lack,” said Richard, planning a kitchen closet. 
“ One who will complete my existence.” 

“ I fancy that you take life too seriously.” The 
doctor nodded gravely, as though expressing a pro- 
fessional opinion which settled some one’s fate. 
“ You are too sensitive. You think you have 
blundered even when you have done the best that 
you or anybody else can do. Your wife must love 
fun — have lots of faith and courage; as a girl she 
should have been a regular madcap. How my wife 
would enjoy that !” and the doctor watched the 
eastern sky. 

“ I am not joking,” Richard replied with some 
dignity. 

“Neither am I. Instead, I am prescribing just 
the kind of a wife you need — a sort of Undine 
with whom to divide your soul. By the way, 


60 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


where are your sister’s intimate friends, your cous- 
ins, and your aunts?” 

I never had a sister and again Richard held 
up the plan. “ My fatJier was a minister. He 
died in a Southern prison. Neither he nor mother 
had any near relativ^es. After father’s death moth- 
er taught music in a large school. I think she 
would have liked to make a musician of me; but 
I had rather pile lumber, and she did not insist. 
She was sick five years, and died six years ago. It 
was she who made the difference between me and 
that young tramp in there. Ah, I shall always 
thank God for my beautiful little mamma. Mrs. 
Richard Rogers will have cause to thank him for 
her too.” 

My beautiful little mamma.” A touch of the 
old child-feeling came back to him that morning, 
and with it the childish* words, wdiich added dignity 
to the tanned face and bearded lips. You can 
trust a man wdio speaks of his mother as Richard 
Rogers spoke of his then, and he will not fail you. 
He lifted his hat from his head and brushed his 
hair back lightly ere he replaced it. He turned 
again to the plan, and drew heavy marks around 
the outside \valls. 

^^My father and mother are both in the old home 
yet,” said the doctor. He turned his face toward 
the east when he thought of the old home. It is 
the Westerner’s Mec(‘a. 

Dr. Harvey was tall and well made; he had a 


DAYLIGHT UPON IT. 


G1 


fair skin, pink cheeks, and blonde hair and beard. 
No, he was not a pretty man — Heaven forbid ! 
His face was manly, though you instinctively felt 
that he looked like his mother. In her face those 
features must be delicate, beautiful, womanly. 

Do you think they were getting acquainted rather 
rapidly — that practical young business men out 
AVest do. not watch the sun rise and talk of their 
families or possible love affairs? That is just what 
they do, under certain conditions. There is such 
a thing as falling in love at first sight. Dr. Wil- 
liam Harvey and Richard Rogers had done that 
very thing. It had been mouths since the latter 
had seen a person to whom he cared to speak of his 
private affairs or mention his mother’s name. His 
was a loving, reverent nature ; he had watched the 
sun rise over the tumbling plains a hundred times, 
but the glory of it did not lessen. His love for his 
mother lay alongside of his love for the Creator 
and his works. And so, whde the people began to 
stir in the village, these men talked, each one from 
a different motive. Richard spoke of his mother 
as we speak of those who have been so long dead 
that we cease to miss them from our daily life, be- 
cause they never moved among the scenes which 
now surround us, yet whose place cannot be filled 
by others. 

There was no hermit in Dr. Harvey’s nature, 
and his soul broadened and deepened with every 
breath of that splendid air. He thought of his 


62 


EICHABD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


wife and her pleasure in such a scene, and it was 
impossible for him to enjoy it perfectly without 
her. Then he took })leasure beforehand in asking 
his new friend to the house lie meant to build. 
There was only one sad memory in his heart : that 
was a dear memory, covered then with June flow- 
ers. His father and mother were enjoying their 
old age in the old liome on the farm. Frank and 
liis wife had taken the real cares from their shoul- 
ders. Father tended his fruit and poultry, and 
mother cared for her flowers and knit for her boys. 
The picture made a pleasant background in the 
young man’s memory. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


SIDE LIGHTS AND HALOS. 


“ A woman wlio does not carry a halo of good feeling, and 
desire to make everybody contented, about with her wherever 
she goes — an atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least 
six feet radius, which wraps every human being upon whom 
she voluntarily bestows her presence, and so flatters him with 
the comfortable thought that she is rather glad he is alive 
than otherwise — isn’t worth the trouble of talking to, as a 
woman ; she may do well enough to hold a discussion with.” 



HJ STEER lay very still on the bed in the 


▼ * lumber office, his broken ribs securely ban- 
daged, his fractured leg in sjtlints. His tangled 
hair had been sheared from his head ; pain had 
driven tlie impudent look from his face. In its 
])lace there was almost refinement of exjiression — 
the refinement of unconsciousness, it is true — like 
an unconscious angel. Sometimes he raved, but in 
his ravings he did not swear. At first he required 
little care — as Richard had -said, he was not used 
to it — a spoonful of medicine very often, his pil- 
low rearranged when the doctor came or Richard 
could drop business for a little while. Mrs. Gar- 
rett made beef tea and took it to him herself She 
gave him some motherly care with no little tender 


63 


64 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


toadies — gave it in the strong, stern way in which 
she tidied up the office. The way she tidied the 
office made Richard feel that he was a very inferior 
animal. In the first place, housdieejiing — or, 
rather, officekeeping — was a trial to him, and Mrs. 
Garrett took care that he should know that his 
housekeeping was a trial to her. However reso- 
lutely a man may set himself about housework, few 
men enjoy it for its own sake. They may have 
many comfortable theories on the subject, and some- 
times may give their wives useful advice (about 
letting things go), but with most of the philosoph- 
ical sex it were easier to tell twenty what it were 
right to do than be one of twenty to follow my own 
teachings.’’ 

]Mrs. Garrett dusted the table and tlien turned 
lier attention to the safe. On it were some old 
numbers of Harper^s, a bundle of lesson helps, a 
])air of slip})ers, a leather-covered cuff-box and 
some patent cuff-holders, a spool of black linen 
thread with a big needle sticking into it, a box of 
})atent shoe-button fasteners, a black felt hat, a 
j)aper bag of oranges, and the tomato-can holding 
the forbidding cactus-plant, whose pink blossoms 
had dried away. Richard kept the memory of them 
in his heart. All the articles on the safe were 
covered with dust — the black, powder-like dust of 
the Nebraska prairies. What is a man to do in a 
country where dust defies the most energetic house- 
wife, and your landlady affirms that dust will sift 


SIDE LIGHTS AND HALOS. 


65 


tliroiigli an air-tight joint? No carpentry is proof 
against it. Neither was Mrs. Garrett’s energy. 
She began with that safe, and cleaned the whole 
room. Then she fastened a curtain across the win- 
dow to keep out the light. She gave Richard good 
advice, for which he was truly grateful while he 
dreaded the adviser as sensitive men always dread 
a woman of impressive presence. He wondered 
if there were times when she became a trifle un- 
pleasant to deal with. 

Mrs. Garrett’s hair had been yellow once ; it was 
gray now, and she twisted it hard. Her complex- 
ion was sallow ; the corners of her mouth had a 
downward tendency, while the dark circles around 
her gray eyes seemed brought out and made em- 
phatic by her blue dresses. She wore blue check 
a})roiis and white linen collars. When she sat 
down she crossed her feet. Richard wondered how 
she dressed and how she looked when “he” courted 
her. Mrs. Garrett always spoke of her husband by 
that impressive pronoun in the third person singu- 
lar. How was it that she inspired such a man as 
Moses Garrett with such infinite tenderness for her- 
self? But inspire him she did, and he hung on 
her words and acted on her suggestions with loving 
attention and dispatch. He was very busy that 
week, having bought a lot and begun to put up a 
small house. He bought the lumber on credit. 
They were very poor. It took nearly all their 
savings to pay their way West along with the 
5 


66 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


freight on their things/’ Fate had gone liard 
with the worthy couple in the East. You felt that 
they had seen trouble, though they rarely spoke of 
their past. But hope blossomed anew for Moses 
and Annis Garrett. Hope is a plant which starts 
quickly in the West. The four walls of their (pot- 
tage went up, the roof was put on, and Annis 
moved bravely in, saying they could live almost any 
way rather than board longer at the hotel. The 
little one-roomed house was to serve as kitchen in 
the home they meant to build after they got started. 
Moses put up some corner shelves, and Annis hung 
a snow-white sheet before them. That was their 
pantry. They partitioned off their sleeping-room 
Avith two old-fashioned home-made bedspreads that 
Moses’ grandmother wove in her girlhood. All 
the rest of the room was parlor, dining-room, and 
kitchen, and the house was large, enough to hold a 
great deal of happiness. 

Meanwhile Whistler did not improve. The ner- 
vous shock left him possessed by a great fear. 
Fever set in. On Saturday a severe chill shook 
his broken frame, and the gravest results Avere 
feared from the injury to his chest. 

Only God’s goodness can save him noAV,” said 
Dr. Harvey as he stood outside the office. “ We 
doctors don’t cure such cases ; but I will do all I 
can for him and he turned again to his patient. 

A few minutes later Mrs. Garrett entered the 
office. I took a bite early to-night, and left 


SIDE LIGHTS AND HALOS. 


67 


Moses’ supper on the table — he’s to work on the 
new store — so I could come over and stay with 
Whistler while you folks go to supper; and take 
plenty of time to chew your victuals, or you’ll be 
havin’ dyspepsia with all the rest you’ve got to 
bother you.” 

^‘You are very kind, Mrs. Garrett, but I am 
afraid you will overwork yourself trying to help 
me so much.” 

Idleness is the parent of vice and misery ; my 
mother always said so. Anyway, I’ve had to work 
ever since I was born. Do you s’pose that tramp 
was doin’ any useful work when he got his leg — I 
should say limb— broke in two and his whole inte- 
rior disarranged ? You can see the vice layin’ around 
loose in them saloons where the men are settin’ with 
their feet on beer-barrels. I expect that’s why the 
Lord keeps you so busy — he wants to keep you out 
of mischief. Mon do have to have somebody plan 
for them mostly.” 

That night Richard sat alone beside Whistler, 
who muttered of a white lady, a jail, of lightning 
and fire, lingering pain, and the cross of Calvary. 
Suddenly there was a heavy step outside, and then 
Lon Dietrich walked into the office and stood look- 
ing down at the boy with a dark frown upon his 
brow and a fierce light in his eyes. 

Strange that Robbie’s leanin’ agin me should 
make me so lame ; but ’course lightning ’ll strike 
them lumber- piles. Its natural for ’em to burn 


68 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


up/’ AVliistler muttered with a delirious laugli. 
Then he opened his eyes and fixed them upon 
Lon. 

’Course it ’ll burn up them lumber-piles, with 
Robbie a-standin’ right on top of one of ’em. 
Jesus Christ, the first and last, can’t save you, Lon 
Dietrich, if you fire them lumber-piles.” 

Lon turned and slunk away. He had something 
that he could not fight : it was the injured, fever- 
stricken tramp, and some way the tramp w'as con- 
nected with his Robbie. 

Mrs. Harvey reached Boom City that night. 
Richard was already seated at the breakfast-table 
when the doctor and his wife entered the dining- 
room the next morning. There was no one else at 
the table, and the doctor paused beside Richard’s 
chair, saying, 

^‘Lena, this is Mr. Rogers; Mr. Rogers, my 
wife. Now, if you people are not good friends it 
won’t be my fault; I have done my best to give 
you both a good send-off.” 

'^For which I am truly grateful. Mrs. Harvey, 
I am very happy to bid you welcome to Boom 
City.” 

I feel as though I had known Mr. Rogers for 
years,” said Mrs. Harvey as she gave Richard a 
slim white hand. My husband has told me so 
much about you that you seem like an old friend.” 

The doctor seated his wife at Richard’s right 
hand, and himself took the chair next her. All 


SIDE LIGHTS AND HALOS. 


69 


tliree told the barefooted girl that they would take 
coffee and beefsteak. Richard thought how much 
even the dining-room of a frontier hotel is bright- 
ened by the presence of such a woman as INIrs. 
Harvey. He could look steadily at her without 
being rude, for she was talking to him. She was 
a slender woman, dressed in a plain but stylish 
black dress with something soft and white at her 
throat. She had a sweet pale face, dark eyes, and 
heavy black hair. Her voice was very gentle ; her 
eyes often sought her husband’s like the eyes of a 
woman who is used to being cherished. Her feat- 
ures might not be called beautiful, but a beautiful 
soul and a steadfast purpose shone through them 
until they were better than beautiful. For one 
brief moment Richard almost envied Dr. Harvey 
that a woman of such loving, gentle strength was 
to be his companion all through life. Then he 
asked, 

^^Mrs. Harvey, does our prairie landscape seem 
tame fo you ?” 

No ; I can understand now how Charlotte 
Bronte had such a passion for her moors.” 

It is the great distances that give the grandeur 
to this country,” the doctor observed. 

Then the coloring is so rich and nicely shaded — 
the sky so blue and the earth so green,” said Mrs. 
Harvey. Even my first glimpse of the place 
delights me. Mr. Rogers, do you ever have cloudy 
days here ?” 


70 BICHART) ROGERS, CHRTSTIAN. 

We do, tradition to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing/' 

Mrs. Harvey flashed a roguish look upon her 
husband, who explained ; 

‘‘ Oh, about four days out of thirty will be gray 
days." 

That will do very well. I know I shall love 
this country : it seems so fresh from God's hand." 

I am afraid you will change your opinion in 
less than a week," said Richard. You may de- 
cide that man has not improved upon God's handi- 
work." 

Man seldom does," she replied. Certainly 
not in the city we came from. I have never seen 
country life, save during my visits to my husband's 
home. There everything seems so sweet and pure 
when contrasted with the life familiar to me." 

“ I begin to regret that I was a city boy," said 
Richard. Boys shut up by brick and mortar are 
an ignorant lot." 

“ Yes," the doctor observed ; they know noth- 
ing of hoeing corn on hot days until their back is 
almost broken ; of picking up stones when their 
fingers are blistered ; of helping pull stumps when 
they want to go fishing; nor of getting up at four 
o'clock in the morning to help get in hay, because 
there was no dew and it will be sure to rain before 
noon ; nor of tramping two miles through the rain 
to look after a trap which never catches anything ; 
nor of spending half a day in digging out a 


SIDE LIGHTS AND HALOS. 


71 


woodchuck, only to find that the beast was out 
before/’ 

My husband was a farmer’s son, you observe,” 
said Mrs. Harvey. 

Others of the boarders entered the room, and the 
conversation became general. 

By the way, Mr. Rogers,” said the doctor as 
they paused in the hall after breakfast, am going 
to bring Mrs. Harvey down to see our boy.” 

I am very glad of that. The boy had a hard 
night last night — the hardest he has had.” 

Is that so ? You should have come for me.” 

I got along with him very well.” 

I will go down right off and the doctor ran 
up stairs for his wife’s hat. 

Mrs. Harvey remained outside the office while 
the doctor went in to see Whistler. The scenes 
around her were so new and unusual that she was 
pleased and excited as a child. Presently Richard 
came out to where she was standing. He smiled 
at her droll remarks about the town, but as he 
looked along the street his sensitive blue eyes had 
the light of indignation in them. His face was 
worn and showed the loss of sleep, for it had been 
a hard week in more ways than one. 

Soon the doctor appeared. Will you come to see 
Whistler now?” Richard asked, and Mrs. Harvey 
replied, 

I should like to.” 

They all turned back to the office. Mrs. Harvey 


72 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


sat down on the side of the bed and laid her hand 
on Whistler’s head. She softly brushed back his 
hair, and gave his face loving touches as though he 
belonged to her. The hot, suffering head stopped 
tossing, the boy moved one hand, and Mrs. Harvey 
took it in hers. The doctor looked on with keen 
professional eyes, Richard with excited fancy. Per- 
liaps he might get some new light on tlie boy’s his- 
tory. After a time Whistler opened his eyes and 
looked up into Mrs. Harvey’s face. The eyes had 
the light of reason in them, and a gleam like that 
of recognition. Soon his lips moved, and as the 
doctor bent closer he caught strange words, such as 
are on childhood’s lips in another language than 
ours. 

AVhistler’s vocabulary was shamefully rich in 
words which betrayed his life. It was only when 
memory forgot these, for an instant, in a flash of 
reason amidst the darkness of delirium, that he 
remembered the words he must have used in his 
babyhood. Could those words be made the key to 
his history? Such a little thing; but by it they 
knew there had been a loving mother to watch over 
Ids cradle, and that she had been young and beauti- 
ful. 

Memories are strange things ; words are strange 
things: they arc “ fossilized poetry;” they are fos- 
silized love. To him who speaks thinkingly even 
the humblest words, names of things beneath our 
feet are full of poetry, full of beauty. That com- 


SIDE LIGHTS AND HALOS. 


73 


moE tliiog the field-daisy — a nuisance, the farmers 
call it — tells us that once its golden disk and ray- 
like petals reminded some one of the' suu, the ^‘eye 
of day,^’ and the flower at their feet was named 
day’s eye ” — our daisy. The story is all in that 
little word. So in the young tramp’s half-delirious 
words was hidden the story of the light of love 
which shone on his birth. Alas! the story was 
hidden ; they never read it, but they knew it was 
there. 

And so, if recorded history should perish, phi- 
lologists might go back and pick it out of the lan- 
guages we speak — imperfectly as history, perhaps, 
and under side lights, but still enough to prove the 
correctness of the Genesis story from the internal 
evidence of the language. 

On our lips every day is one brave word that has 
come down to us through the ages. Noah used it 
before the flood. 


CHAPTER IX. 


^^DELIBERATELY RESOLVING TO BE MART 

“ Any one who did not know better might naturally infer 
that the one class loves beer and whiskey better than the other 
loves souls. 

“ I could’nt help thinking that with his temperament, and 
the laws as they are now, the grave was about the only place 
of safety that the Lord himself could find for the boy.’’ 

L on Dietrich was touched by no feelings of pity 
for Whistler. Instead, he went out of the 
lumber office that Saturday night with all the 
bravado of his nature thoroughly aroused. A re- 
spectable citizen like himself was not to be scared 
by the raving of a crazy tramp. There could be 
no more gospel meetings held in the lumber-yard 
while Whistler lay sick in the office. Even Rich- 
ard sat on a bunch of shingles outside while he 
figured bills and talked business with his customers. 
Lon Dietrich swore there should be more whiskey 
drunk that Sunday than had been drunk on any 
previous day in all the history of Boom City. 

A herd of ponies was driven into town that day 
and bunched together on the public square. The 
spell of approaching servitude seemed to have come 
over this herd. There was something pathetic in 
74 


^^DELIBERATELY RESOLVING TO BE MAD:* 75 

the way they huddled together with heads down, 
so unlike their ancestors, the wild horses in their 
freedom. There was little other business going on, 
and people were at leisure to discuss the merits of, 
or to purchase, ponies. An animal was selected, a 
noose flung over his neck, and he was thrown to 
the ground and his head held down for a time. 
He was allowed to rise and thrown again, until 
tired. The bridle was put on, and there was more 
worrying the pony into submission. Next, a sad- 
dle was strapped upon his back. His pride rebelled, 
but the potent lariat again reduced him to order. 
Then a herder sprung into the saddle and held the 
poor beast’s head high while the animal plunged 
wildly to rid himself of his burden. 

If the unwily rider loosened his hold on the 
rein for an instant, the broncho dropped his head 
between his front feet, lifted his heels, and the rider 
lit on the ground head first. ^‘Bucking” is the 
technical term for this feat of the broncho. 

That morning several cowboys from ranches off 
to the west had ridden into town. They were 
bound to have a good time. Lon Dietrich treated 
all around. The herders who had the ponies in 
charge felt the necessity of keeping sober enough 
to attend to business. Those who had come after 
the good time drank more freely. One of them 
galloped through town as Moses Garrett was 
returning from a call upon Richard Rogers. He 
had taken some beef tea to Whistler, and carried 


76 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


the empty bowl in his liaiicl. Just then the wind 
took the galloping cowboy’s sombrero from his 
head and rolled it over and over on the grass 
straight toward Mr. Garrett. The rider stopped 
his horse, leaned on his saddle-pommel, and called 
out, 

Here, uncle ! bring me my hat.” 

That courtesy Moses Garrett would have been 
pleased to show any man mounted on horseback, 
if he might be permitted to offer his services. 
Being ordered to do so, Yankee Calvinism burned 
within him, and he refused. The cowboy straight- 
ened himself in his saddle, there was a gleam of 
polished steel, a sharp report, and a smootli round 
bole through Moses Garrett’s best hat. He fetched 
the sombrero tremblingly, with fears for Anuis in 
his heart. Had she seen? No, for his house was 
out of sight. Had she heard? No, for she was 
washing dishes and singing, 

“ When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, 

My grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply ; 

The flame shall not hurt thee : I only design 
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.” 

Moses sat down on a box outside of the door 
until his color should come back to his face. It 
was just church time — he tliought of that; but 
there was no church in the place. AVhy ? 

That very morning he had regretted that he had 
settled forty-seven miles from a church. He now 


^^DELIBERATELY RESOLVING TO BE MADT 77 

realized that forty-seven miles from a church meant 
just that far from law and safety. Annis went on 
singing : 

“ E’en down to old age, all my people shall prove 
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love ; 

And when hoary hairs shall thy temples adorn, 

Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.” 

“ Annis used to be mighty fond of Portuguese 
Hymn, but I haiut heard her sing it before since 
the boy — Poor Annis f’ 

Moses Garrett sat very still and thought. It 
was a little hard for him to enter into the spirit of 
that hymn. Sometimes we find that we are well 
stocked with the wrong kind of courage. Moses 
Garrett never had had a hole shot through his hat 
before. He wondered if the early martyrs felt 
just as he did. He tried to feel that he was being 
persecuted for righteousness’ sake, and got no near- 
er to it than the certainty that he had tried to main- 
tain his own dignity — and had failed. By the way, 
that is about the extent of nineteenth-century per- 
secutions. 

The social lesson was not lost on Boom City that 
morning, and it Avas not considered good taste to 
meddle with cowboys Avhile they were on a tear.” 
There was a fight in Shiner’s Place.” One of the 
belligerents was put out. He Avent over to the 
Enterprise Saloon and got SAA^earing, fighting drunk. 
Dealing blows into the air, he staggered about, 


78 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


swearing that he would be revenged. Later, he 
met his rival, who was only foolishly drunk. There 
was the sound of a revolver, and the whiskey-fooled 
man sank to the ground. Bright blood flowed 
from a wound in his temple. Ah, he might have 
belonged to you or me ! The murderer sprung on 
a pony’s back, and would have fled from swift jus- 
tice as dealt out by an enraged crowd ; but his 
grasp on the bridle was not firm. The pony’s 
back was saddle-worn and sore. He ^‘bucked,” 
and the rider lay motionless on the ground. Swift 
and terrible vengeance had come. 

“ When a man is drunk he don’t claim to be 
responsible for all he does.” I caught that sentence 
as I passed some loafei's on a street-corner yester- 
day. Where, then, does the responsibility lie? 

Dr. Harvey looked on the scene silently, bitterly 
blaming himself for not having foreseen something 
of this kind, and for bringing his wife to such a 
place. She had watched until he drew her away 
from the window, then she knelt beside the bed 
and wept ; and so he left her when they came for 
him. 

The man’s neck was broken by the fall. They 
both died instantly and both died drunk,” said Dr. 
Harvey, ten minutes after he went down stairs. 

O God ! these were somebody’s boys ! 

My friend, one of them had brown hair and 
eyes like your boy’s. Somebody loved them. 
Somebody blessed them and kissed them when they 


^^DELIBERATELY RESOLVING TO BE MAD:^ 79 


left home. - But tliey went West to that grand wide 
land where dangers are so thick and God’s woi*kers 
are so few. 

The men were carried into the sample-room of 
the hotel, for the saloon is no place for dead men, 
even though they died drunk. Dr. Harvey re- 
turned to his wife. He found her standing by the 
window with her forehead resting against the glass. 
She turned as he entered the room and put both 
her arms around his neck. 

‘^Oh, Will, thank God our boy died while he 
was innocent ! God was good to me — I see it now. 
Will, you said you should take me away from here 
to-morrow. You shall do nothing of the kind. I 
shall stay here and grow strong to help save some 
other mother’s boy. Perhaps we can save one for 
our baby’s sake.” 

There are two doors of hell open down there, 
Lena. Let us open ^ a wicket gate ’ to heaven,” 
was the reply. 

Then and there William Harvey and Lena his 
wife knelt and consecrated themselves to the work 
of saving other mothers’ boys. The black-eyed 
baby sleeping under Eastern violets had not lived 
and died in vain. 

Do you think I should have left this chapter 
out? — that perhaps children may read it, and too 
soon grow old in the knowledge of the ways of the 
wicked world ? 

With all their cruelty, the Komans had dainty 


80 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


tastes'. They enjoyed their brutal fights even to 
the death, but they disliked the smell of blood. 
So the solid masonry of the Coliseum at Rome was 
pierced with tubing through which steam of spices 
and perfume came up to overpower the scent of 
the blood of their victims. We must have a 
certain amount of pain and sorrow in our stories, 
but, like the Romans, we want the smell of blood 
covered over. We do not want to be told that 
such pain and sorrow may come to us and ours. 

There is no lower depth portrayed in the seventh 
chapter of Proverbs than may open just before 
your boy. I have written of nothing but what 
may be in the future for him. I have written it 
that he may know and that you may teach him to 
grow strong, as the oak does, by resisting, and not 
by kee})ing him out of the danger. That is not 
the way heroes are made ; and your boy has mate- 
rial for a hero in him. Send him to the West as a 
strong Christian worker. Evils were not all guard- 
ed against when the constitution was adopted. The 
country was not for ever saved when Lee surren- 
dered. There is something for your boy to do. 
Fame and everlasting honor await him. The West 
needs moral heroes. 


CHAPTER X. 

GODS WAY OF SAVING THE BOY. 

Because of little low-laid heads a,ll crowned by golden hair, 
For evermore all little brows to me a glory wear ; 

I kiss them reverently — alas ! I know the stains I bear. 

Because of dear but close-shut holy eyes, of heaven’s own 
blue, 

All little eyes do fill my own with tears, whate’er their hue, 
And motherly I gaze their innocent, clear depth into. 

Because of little pallid lips which once my name did call, 
No childish voice in vain appeal upon my eardoth fall; 

I count it all my joy their joys to share, and sorrows small. 

Because of little dimpled hands that folded lie. 

All little hands reached out to me do have a pleading cry ; 

I clasp them as they were small wandering birds, lured home 
to fly. 

Because of little death-cold feet, for earth’s rough ways un- 
meet, 

I’d journey leagues to save from sin and harm such little feet, 
And count the lowest service done for them so sacred sweet.” 

T here was the sound of heavy knocking on 
the hotel door at three o’clock the next morn- 
ing. Then Lon Dietrich’s voice was heard : 

Doctor, for God’s sake save my boy !” He 
had been running, and panted heavily, so that the 
words were hoarse gasps. 

6 


81 


82 


EICIIARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


Here is a sample of liiiman consistency, you ob- 
serve. After ruining other people’s boys, he 
turned around and begged help in saving his own. 
Jhit that must make no ditference with the doctor, 
who went in all haste along the street, through the 
dirty, beer-smelling bar-room, and into the room 
back of it, where the family lived. 

The air in the room was stifling, for Kobbie was 
cold and his fatlier had built a fire before he fetched 
the doctor. The lamp was turned too high, and 
gave out a sickening smell. The furniture, rough 
and poor as it was, seemed out of all proportion to 
the size of the room, and appeared to try to shrink 
away from the light. A large cooking range and a 
bed occupied nearly all of the room; a small table 
stood against the wall, and under it was a soap-box 
full of Robbie’s playthings. A dish cupboard 
made of packing-boxes, with a torn turkey-red cur- 
tain in front of it, stood near the outside door. 

Mrs. Dietrich was seated on the bed, holding the 
child in her arms and crying in her helpless fright. 
One glance at Robbie would have alarmed any one 
in the least used to the ways of children and their 
diseases. 

What seems to trouble the boy ?” the doctor 
asked. 

Oh, sir, I don’t know. He ’s took bad, and 
looks so. Just see his little hands, how he holds 
’em. I can’t undo his fists;” and Mrs. Dietrich 
wept aloud. 


GOD^S WAY OF SAVING THE BOY. 83 


The doctor quietly took Kobbie from his mother’s 
arms. 

Bring me some liot water and some pieces of 
flannel; and, Mrs. Dietrich, that door had better 
be opened a very little — the air won’t strike the 
child.” 

Dr. Harvey’s firm, strong hands began the des- 
perate, heart-breaking sort of work which sometimes 
can help our darlings, sometimes cannot. By and 
by the rigid muscles relaxed. Bobbie opened his 
eyes with that bright look in them that brings joy 
to the mother’s heart, but makes the doctor sigh. 

^^Nice man, pretty man, sing,” said Robbie. 

The doctor began humming a lullaby. 

Not zat, not zat,” cried Bobbie. 

He heard you sing at the meeting,” his mother 
explained. He has wanted to run after you and 
get you to sing some more every tiuie he’s seen 
you since then. I could hardly keep him back.” 

^M’ll sing for you now, my little man and the 
doctor went on with the lullaby. 

‘‘Not zat; sing my paper.” 

“ What does he mean ?” the doctor asked, turn- 
ing sharply on the parents. 

Lon was standing helplessly by, with his hands 
on the back of a chair and one foot on one of the 
rungs. He turned and went into the bar-room. 
Then his wife answered the doctor’s question : 

“ He has some leaves out of a singing-book. 
He wants you to sing off them.” A deep red 


84 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


burned in the woman’s cheeks. She looked appre- 
hensively toward the bar-room. 

Bring the leaves/’ said the doctor. 

Mrs. Dietrich drew out the soap-box, and found, 
under the playthings, a few of the leaves from that 
destroyed hymn-book. 

^^Sing zem,” the child begged, while almost in 
the grasp of another s})asm. 

Dr. Harvey smoothed out the leaves, laid them 
on the bed, and began to sing: 

“ I am so glad that our Father in heaven, 

Tells of his love in the book he has given ; 
"Wonderful things in the Bible I see ; 

This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me.” 

Lon came back and stood looking at the floor. 
He did not know how to fight tlie enemy that was 
assailing him, though he groaned as the spasm 
came on again, and held out his arms toward the 
unconscious child. The mother chafed the little 
arm and softly patted the clenched fist. 

Sing more, doctor,” she”^ begged, not seeming to 
notice her husband. 

Is there' some woman who can come and help 
you?” the doctor asked. 

Lou left the room. When he returned Bobbie’s 
eyes were open. 

Come to your pa, my little fellow and Lon 
held his hands out coaxingly ; but the child did 
not notice him, could not answer him. 


GOD^S WAY OF SAVING TKE BOY. 


85 


A woman came in and began to wring her hands 
and cry, Oh, how sick he is ! He’ll die sure. 
That’s just the way my boy was took.” 

The doctor turned toward her, saying, Go over 
to the hotel and tell my wife that I want her here. 
AYait until she is ready, and come back with her.” 

Little feller, little feller, look at your pa. 
Can’t you talk to me? See your ma;” and Lou’s 
voice choked. 

That week the doctor divided his time between 
the lumber office and the saloon. It was hard tell- 
ing which patient was the nearer death. Perhaps 
there had been no help for either, even from the 
first. 

Some hours Robbie seemed better, some they 
thought he must be dying. He had been ailing 
for several days, but his father would not have the 
doctor until he was frightened into it — the doctor 
was one of the meeting kind, and that was excuse 
for letting the child suffer. Just at midnight, as 
Thursday became Friday, there was another call 
from Robbie. Lon rattled the hotel door and 
shouted, Doctor ! doctor !” then turned and ran 
back to his child. 

‘^Come to your pa, little feller,” the father sobbed 
at daybreak. 

Stay wiz man ; man sing,” said the child. 

“Go call my wife and send for Mrs. Garrett,” 
said the doctor. 

When Lon returned the doctor was singing. 


86 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


“ Oh, if there’s only one song I can sing 
When in his beauty I see the great King, 

This shall my song in eternity be : 

‘ Oh, what a wonder that Jesus loves me !’ ” 

Jesus loves rae, Jesus loves me/^ repeated the 
baby voice. 

When Mrs. Garrett entered the room Mrs. Die- 
trich was sobbing in Mrs. Harvey’s arms. The 
doctor laid the child on the bed, saying, 

“ Robbie is now where he can have all the music 
he wants. He is with the Jesus who loves him, 
and who loves you and me.” 

Friends and neighbors came and looked at Rob- 
bie; they exhorted his parents to bear up and not 
take it hard.” They said it seemed ‘^sudden like,” 
and stood around helplessly. Then they went 
away, feeling that they had done all they could do. 

Afterward ^Irs. Dietrich said that it was ^Irs. 
Garrett and Mrs. Harvey who did everything for 
her. They made the little body ready for its last 
sleep while the mother turned her face to the wall 
and wept. The father went out and leaned against 
the side of the house, so miserable that he forgot to 
swear. It was Mrs. Garrett who said the bar- 
room was the only spare room in the house, and 
the little body must be laid out in there. 

^Mt’s no fit place for him, ma’am,” Lon said 
apologetically. 

It won’t hurt him now, Mr. Dietrich. If he 
had lived, you might have had cause to worry. 


GOD'S WAY OF SAVING THE BOY. 87 

Now lie is all right, and I am willing to trust him 
right in that bar-room/’ 

Mrs. Garrett took credit to herself that she said 
no more. She was going about this work in the 
same strong, vigorous way in which she cleaned 
Richard’s office and bathed AVhistler’s face. Her 
character had much of the granite of her native 
hills — a granite character unsoftened by love. 

Lon went to work to roll out barrels and scrub 
the floor. Yes, he had thought the place pure 
enough for his boy to play in, but it was not pure 
enough for the child’s dead body to rest in before it 
was taken to the grave. That is another specimen 
of human consistency. There is nothing too sweet 
or tender or costly for the ones who lie in the cold 
and darkened parlor. It gives us an added heart- 
ache that the room must lie cold. We shiver when 
we go in there. Strangers go in alone to care for 
them. Our work is over. Would we had done 
more for them while we could ! 

It was Mrs. Harvey who, standing beside Rob- 
bie with her arms about his mother, said softly, 
Jesus called them unto him and said, Sufler 
little children to come unto me, and forbid them 
not : for of such is the kingdom of God.’ ” 

It was Mrs. Harvey who coaxed the mother 
away from that room, and made her drink a cup 
of tea and lie down. It was Mrs. Garrett who 
found some folds of white lawn, tied them with a 
black ribbon, and fastened them to the door of the 


88 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


siilooD. It was Mrs. Harvey who made a wreath 
of prairie roses and laid it on Robbie’s breast. In 
the* centre of it she placed a dainty card bearing 
these words: 

^^For God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

^^For God sent not his Son into the world to 
condemn the world ; but that the world through 
him might be saved.” 

‘‘I used to be a Presbyterian,” said Mrs. Die- 
trich, in answer to the doctor’s questions about the 
funeral. 

It was evening, and the doctor, returning from a 
call upon Whistler, stopped at the saloon for his 
wife, who had been with Mrs. Dietrich all day. 

We haint been nothing for a long time,” Mrs. 
Dietrich went on. “ I’ve got careless since I’ve 
been West. There haint been no meetings to go 
to, an’ our business haint been in the meeting line. 
I lost my Bible when we got burnt out, and we 
haint felt able to buy another one since. I haint 
heard one word of Bible read, since Robbie — bless 
his little heart ! — was born, until that day to Mr. 
Rogers’ meeting. There haint been anybody 
workin’ at religion in these parts until he come 
here. I hate to have my baby put away like a 
heathen’s baby, without any praying. I never 
thought my baby would die. He was so smart, 
and his eyes were so black and so bright ! Only 


GOD^S WAY OF SAVING THE BOY. 89 


last week he played so hard and run so fast. And 
yesterday he looked up into my face and smiled so 
bright when he was so sick. I never thought I 
would outlive him.’’ 

Mrs. Harvey laid her hand on Mrs. Dietrich’s 
shoulder, but did not speak. 

We know how you feel,” said the doctor 
quietly. ‘^Our boy was so much like yours. He 
had large dark eyes like his mother’s. But only 
last winter we gave him back to God, and our 
hearts are very sore.” 

‘‘ Is there no minister near here ?” Mrs. Harvey 
asked. 

If only some one would pray !” Mrs. Dietrich 
wailed. 

Don’t know of any preacher near enough to 
git,” said Lon. I haint seen one in a right smart 
while — five years or so. They can’t be thick here- 
about. I kinder wish they were. I should like 
to have a sky pilot take me in tow for a spell.” 

‘‘ If somebody would pray,” Mrs. Dietrich re- 
peated, with the memory of that gospel meeting in 
her heart. Would Mr. Rogers come and read 
some of his Bible and pray and sing some? Rob- 
bie Avould like that.” 

Yes, Robbie would like that,” Mrs. Harvey 
repeated. 

I can’t ask Rogers to do it,” said Lon. He 
turned and glanced behind him and then looked at 
the floor. 


90 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN, 


Mr. Rogers is very busy tiiese days,” said tlie 
doctor. Tliat youug tramp is very sick indeed ; 
but if the funeral is Sunday, Rogers can leave his 
business — or, rather, he will not have any business 
— and we can get some one else to stay with 
AVhistler. I will speak to him about it, and I 
think he will come. Mrs. Harvey and I will help 
with the singing.” 

The next morning Lon took down his signs. 
He did it deliberately, in full view of Boom City. 
There was one which he could not take down, and 
the letters ‘‘Fire Within” remained over the door. 

“Robbie said, ‘Jesus loves me,’ he did, a-lying 
there in the doctor’s arms and dying,” Lon observed 
to a chance passer-by. He did not look up to see 
who it was. He did not care; but his words were 
repeated, and soon all Boom City knew that the 
saloon would be closed during a proper period of 
mourning. 


CHAPTER XI. 

UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 

‘‘ Seek ye the battle-ground where be the foeman found 
Wortliy thy steel? 

No Alexander need sigh for a grander 
World to reveal. 

********** 

“ Thou art the battle-ground — thyself the foeman found 
Seeking thy life ; 

There is a world within— oh, what a world to win I 
On with the strife ! 

Then, when the fight is done,— then, when the field is won, 
Knowest thou thyself. 

Let the loud paeans roll, on through the gladdened soul, . 

That, beyond fear or doubt, thrills with the inward shout, 

‘ Victory ! Victory ! 

Conquest of self.’” 

'\r OU come here and ask me to read the Bil)le 

JL and pray over his dead cliild said Richard 
Rogers hotly as he turned upon his companion. 

Why, you know that fellow tried to bum my 
buildings, and would kill me if he dared 

Hr. Plarvey had joined Richard ’ as he stood be- 
side a pile of boards near the office. On the timber 
before him lay a large sheet of paper with his busi- 
ness card printed across the top. He was making 

91 


92 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


out a bill of lumber with a purple pencil. The 
village sounds came distinctly to the ears of the 
two men — the sounds of hammers at work on a 
dozen new buildings, the laughter of children, the 
voices of three Swedes disputing in their native 
tongue, — all these and more. The sun was high 
in the heavens; the new timber reflected its rays, 
filling the yard with a tiresome glare of light. 
The heat was oppressive, the winds were still, and 
the prairie grass and growing corn forgot to rustle. 
A crow flapped lazily over the town with a disagree- 
able cawing. All other birds were silent, save a 
kingfisher that, as Richard ceased speaking, poised 
over the river and let go a fiendish laugh, like an 
evil omen. 

The doctor stood silent. Richard made parallel 
marks on the edge of the bill. 

• “ You forgave Whistler in there,” said the doc- 
tor at last. 

Yes : Whistler is only a boy. He would have 
had no motive for firing my yard if Lon had not 
put him up to it. Besides, Whistler had nothing 
to do with the row last Sunday.” 

That began in Shiner^s Place.” 

‘^Yes; but you told me the murderer got 
drunk on Lon’s whiskey. I tell you it’s awful. 
Is there no law in the land to punish such deeds?” 

Swift and terrible punishment has been meted 
out,” the doctor said quietly. 

Lon’s boy is dead, but he is responsible for 


UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 


93 


the murder of two other boys. I sliahf t forget that 
until the grass is green over their graves. Why 
don’t you do this praying yourself?” 

The doctor’s only reply was to lay his hand on 
the one so industriously making parallel lines. 

‘‘ I beg your pardon, doctor,” said Richard im- 
pulsively. I am all broke up. These have been 
hard weeks.” 

I know it.” Presently the doctor added, Lon 
has taken down his signs.” 

He has! Whenf’ 

This morning, in full view of everybody. I 
don’t think he’ll sell whiskey any more.” 

Don’t be too sure of that. I tell you Lon 
Dietrich is thoroughly bad.” 

‘‘Yes, but he’s softened now.” The doctor’s hand 
was lying on Richard’s shoulder. “ Lon wants 
some one to pray beside his child. Do you know 
that the baby lies in that bar-room ?” 

“ There is no other place for him ; besides that, 
Robbie has been there before.” 

“ I thonffht you were anxious to save this town?” 

“ I am.” 

“ Here is your chance, for you can help save Lon 
Dietrich, and perhaps prevent any more such scenes 
as we had last Sunday. Lon is afraid of you. 
Just show liim what a real Christian is. I am 
anxious that the help and comfort now should 
come from Christian people. Don’t you know that 
those who have cared for our dead have a peculiar 


94 RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 

influence over us? Lon can’t fight us in the future 
— or, at least, very few men could after such a scene 
as that funeral will be. It will be on Sunday 
afternoon. Mr. Garrett will stay with Whistler. 
Mrs. Garrett and my wife will sing. I think we 
might have a quartette. Robbie liked singing, you 
know. I sang to him a good deal, and so did my 
wife. I tell you, this is the Giick of time’ in the 
temperance cause for this place.” 

‘‘You understand human nature better than I 
do.” 

“ I understand a father’s heart better than a 
young fellow like you possibly can. I have buried 
my child — a little fellow with great black eyes like 
Robbie’s. I tell you there is some good left in 
Lon Dietrich yet.” 

“ It seems too much like doing this for the policy 
of the thing and Richard began to figure. 

“No, it’s Christian principle. The King has 
sent his servants to bind up the broken-hearted. 
We are commanded to be as ‘ wise as a serpent ’ as 
well as ‘ harndess as a dove.’ ” 

“ I will think about it,” Richard observed as he 
turned to sell some building-paper to a farmer. 
The doctor went to his patient. 

That night Richard sat beside his office table, 
resting both elbows on the palms of his hands. 
He was very tired. Anxiety and wakefulness had 
left deep traces on his face. He frequently glanced 
at Whistler, who was sleeping heavily. A paste- 


UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 


95 


board cover from a writing-pad hung by a crooked 
pin to the lamp-chimney, and was so arranged as to 
leave the bed in shadow. The remainder of the 
room seemed brighter by contrast. Every comfort- 
less detail seemed thrust on the weary man’s notice. 
The discomfort hurt him as it would hurt a refined 
woman. There was a good deal of woman in his 
nature, notwithstanding his manliness. Men of 
his delicacy of feeling are usually weak — weaker 
than a woman ; but there was strength in his char- 
acter like the strength of his limbs and the firmness 
of his muscles. There was a good deal of self-dis- 
cipline going on within him. His stern sense of 
justice had not been satisfied, even though his ene- 
my’s child were dead. He thought it a blessing 
to the child : he at least had escaped a fate like the 
cowboys’, and so the baby was to be congratulated ; 
but that did not wipe away the father’s sins. Rich- 
ard hated I^on Dietrich’s sins, yet he knew he 
should attend Robbie’s funeral, knew he should 
read the Bible and offer prayer — not for love or 
kindness toward Lon Dietrich, nor even yet for 
little Robbie, but because he, Richard Rogers, 
Christian, ought to do it. He went about what he 
believed to be his duty as unflinchingly as a good 
soldier obeys his commander, even when he knows 
it is only another Charge of the Light Brigade.” 

Do you call that a narrow motive? I call it the 
broadest the world 'can show- — a higher form of 
worship than ever offered to the Japanese god of 


96 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


self-restraint. To be so loyal to one\s ideal of truth 
and duty that all other things — personal pleasure 
or personal pain — must take the second place is 
only another form of the divine axiom, The life is 
more than meat.” It was the inspiration of Moses 
and of Paul ; it was the key to the lives of the 
heroes Geneva furnished to the world ; it sent Wil- 
liam of Orange to England ; it sent the Pilgrim 
Fathers to the New World ; through them it found- 
ed this nation. To-day it is acting in the lives of 
millions. 

At last Richard drew his Bible toward him, 
opened it, picked up a stub pen, and drew heavy 
marks around these words : 

But I say unto you. Love your enemies, bless 
them that curse you, do good to them that hate 
you, and pray for them which despiteful ly use you 
and persecute you.” 

Then he looked over the pages for stories of 
childhood ; he chose that oldest, most beautiful one. 

Is it well with the child?” 

Robbie Dietrich’s funeral took place at sunset. 
His father planned it so. When the shadows were 
long a table was })laced on the board walk in 
front of the saloon, and Lon himself pla(;ed the 
coffin on it. Somebody set chairs near it for Lon 
and his wife; some one else brouglit seats for the 
singers. The village people gathered about, the 
men standing with uncovered heads. Tears rolled 
unnoticed down Lon’s cheeks as he gazed at the 


VNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 


97 


little face that smiled straight up into a cloudless 
sky. Yes, he was softened uow. Death and father- 
love had done it — how, only the God who teaches 
little fingers to fasten upon human affections can 
know. 

‘^Robbie said, ^ Jesus loves me,’ Robbie did, 
a-lyin’ there in the doctor’s arms and lookin’ up 
into his face and dyin’,” Lon observed to one of 
his mates who drew near the coffin. 

All Boom City thought grief had affected Lon’s 
senses. It had. It had affected his theology also. 
The door of the human lieart can be opened only 
from above. Robbie alive was a child — his child, 
to be humored one moment, punished the next. 
Robbie dead was an angel holding the door of 
heaven open for his father. Within the last three 
days that father’s creed had crystallized into some- 
thing like this : 

His Robbie was an angel now. He, Lon Die- 
trich, was the father of an angel, and must be 
worthy of his child. His Robbie would nestle 
close up to Jesus and plead for him. Some way 
he would be, he would be, a good man, that he 
might meet Robbie after he too had passed through 
the awful thing we call death. 

Is this very like the faith we call superstition? 
It was the beginning of faith with Lon Dietrich. 
Just then he could not understand nor appreciate 
the pure spirituality of the Christian’s creed. This 
was better than nothing, however, and it led to bet- 
7 


98 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


ter. God was his friend — his best friend. God 
loved him with a love passing a mother’s. God’s 
heart is wide — boundless. We must all carry our 
sins to him, in our Saviour’s name. 

Tliey sang a song that Robbie loved ; then 
Richard read a Bible story of childhood, after 
which he prayed that the parents might some day 
meet the angel Robbie in heaven. There was no 
minister to do this — millions in this Christian land 
cannot have the Bible preached to them ; uncount- 
ed graves are dug over which no prayer is ever 
said. There was nothing unfitting in tliis funeral 
service, though Richard Rogers were only a young 
business man. Some of his traits might not be 
considered saintly, but he had a clean manhood, 
he was a Christian, and he had forgiven his enemy. 
His prayer came from his heart. There was the 
sound of sobbing while the next hymn was sung : 

“ We shall sleep, but not for ever ; 

There will be a glorious dawn. 

We shall meet, *0 part, no, never, 

On the resurrection morn. 

From the deepest caves of ocean. 

From the desert and the plain. 

From the valley and the mountain 
Countless throngs shall rise again. 

“ When we see a precious blossom. 

That we tended with such care, 

Fudely taken from our bosom. 

How our aching hearts despair I 


VNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 


99 


Round its little grave we linger 
Till the setting sun is low, 

Feeling all our hope has perished 
With the flower we cherished so. 

“ We shall sleep, but not for. ever, 

In the lone and silent grave ; 

Blessed be the Lord that taketh, 

Blessed be the Lord that gave. 

In the bright eternal city 

Death can never, never come I 
In his own good time he’ll call us 
From our rest to home sweet home.’' 

Lon was tearless now. His face was haggard, 
as though he were going through some deadly 
struggle. He stepped to the side of the coffin, and 
laid both hands upon it to steady his trembling 
form. His voice was unsteady, but he said : 

Friends and neighbors, I haint the kind of a 
man I oughter be. I haint lived amongst you like 
I ought to. I know you blame me for what hap- 
pened here last Sunday, but that didn’t begin on 
my premises. That haint neither here nor there. 
There is a good deal of meanness about me that 
you don’t know ; and the meanest of it all was two 
weeks ago, just about now. It wa’n’t square fight 
and givin’ a man a chance to defend himself. Part 
of what I did was public, and part of it wa’n’t. 
Them as saw me tear up Mr. Rogers’ hymn-book 
knows what I mean. I knowed I oughter not as 
soon as I see the leaves a-flyin’ ; but I could’nt 
gather them up agin, and I did’ut want anybody 


100 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


else to. I was mad at my little one that’s lyin’ 
here for rnnnin’ after ’em an’ wantin’ ’em and 
takin’ ’em home. I struck him for it. You know 
how Robbie was took sick, an’ how the new doctor 
did everything for him, a-holdin’ him like he was 
his own, and workin’ over him night an’ day, and 
a-singin’ to him off the leaves I tore. And him 
a-lyin’ there in the doctor’s arms and sayin’, ^ Jesus 
loves me,’ an’ dyin’. I know Robbie died ’cause I 
was cross to him and struck him. I haint fit to 
hev a young one. And Robbie’s where he won’t 
git scolded any more for wanting hymn-singing. 
All the meanness you know of me don’t begin 
with what you don’t know. I put Whistler up to 
burning that lumber-yard, knowin’ there ’d be a 
storm — feelin’ it in my bones: I’m rheumatic, you 
know — and thinkin’ the fire ’d be laid to lightning. 
That’s how he come to be in the lumber-yard and 
git his leg broke and all stove up generally. And 
Mr. Rogers took him in an’ took care of him. I 
have got to tell of this ’fore you put Robbie out of 
sight— I can’t after that. I don’t expect anybody 
to forgive me or think anything of me any more — 
don’t see how they can, ’cause it wa’n’t square fight 
but I want to do something to show I am sorry. 
I haint goin’ to sell whiskey any more. We are 
goiiT to be different, me an’ Mrs. Dietrich is. I 
want to move that boy Whistler in there where 
Robbie has been lyin’, and take care of him and 
help make up for the sin I made him do.” 


UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 


101 


Lon looked straight at Robbie’s face all the 
while he talked. His voice broke more than once. 
When he had finished he laid his head down 
against Robbie’s breast and sobbed aloud. Richard 
raised him up and pressed the ex-saloon-keeper’s 
face against his own bosom while he said : 

honor Mr. Dietrich for making this confession 
so publicly. He has done a brave, manly thing. 
I knew all about that in less than a dozen hours 
after it happened, so you will all believe me when 
I tell you that I forgive him from the bottom of 
my heart. And I am sure that no one here will 
ever mention the subject again.” 

And then they laid Robbie’s beautiful body away 
to await infinite morning. 


CHAPTER XII. 


AGE ON AGES TELLINGS 

“ The thoughts they had were the parents of the acts they 
did ; their feelings were parents of their thoughts. It was the 
unseen and spiritual in them that determined the outward and 
real. Their religion, as I say, was the great fact about them.” 

O NE needs but a little knowledge of the. charac- 
ter of the first settlers of the different parts of 
our country, and the impression which those vary- 
ing shades of character have left upon our nation, 
to understand the importance of the first years of a 
Western town. 

Thirty new families moved into Boom City 
within the next six weeks. One bank, one weekly 
paper, one haixhvare-store, two drug-stores, two new 
implement-stores, one hotel, a furniture-store, two 
land-offices, two law-offices, a meat-market, two 
general merchandise and one clothing-store were 
established in Boom City during that summer. 

One hundred and nine new families settled upon 
farms in that county during the months of May 
and June. In and within thirty miles of Boom 
City there settled families from seventeen different 
States, and each family furnished strong exponents 
of state character. Some of these families moved 
102 


‘AN AGE ON AGES TELLING: 


103 


West in the good, old-fashioned prairie-schooner, 
and camped ont beside their wagons while their 
soddies were building. Soddies — yes. Your daugh- 
ters will one day give their sweetest smiles to men 
who are now boys playing on the rough floors of 
Western soddies. Other families came West by 
rail, with their household goods in packing-boxes. 
They stayed at the hotel or in any room they could 
hire while their one-roomed houses were building. 
The houses in many cases were really only large 
pine boxes. Everybody went to housekeeping as 
soon as possible. Many were very poor, and must 
get trusted for building-material. Therein was 
trouble for Richard Rogers. He may have done 
the kind and helpful thing; but, nevertheless, it 
was the unsafe thing for a man who possessed no 
more business capital than he. Some of the settlers 
were able to buy cows, some lived without milk. 
They put in their crops and dug wells. Most of 
them did without meat, fruit, tea, sugar, and shoes, 
but were cheerful through it all. If they had good 
crops, all would be well; if not — they did not talk 
about that. One day in August a fearful hail-storm 
destroyed most of the corn. Then did Richard 
Rogers realize that only by the closest economy and 
the most skillful management could he escape finan- 
cial failure. At the very best there must be great 
suffering in and around Boom City during the 
coming winter. 

I have said that the most of these American 


104 


BICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


settlers were strong exponents of state character. 
Positive characteristics become still more positive. 
Old, half-forgotten local troubles come up with a 
new and dangerous meaning. The rare, ozone- 
charged air of the plains is a powerful stimulant 
for the nervous American. Each man and woman 
of them referred to the way we did back East.^’ 
Each one wanted these ways copied in these new 
homes. 

Three branches of the Teutonic family mingled 
with the ancient Britons to form the sturdy race 
now mistress of the seas. From the larger reservoir 
of the world are coming: races whose fusion shall 
form the most virile people in the world. There 
are many reasons why this amalgamation will be a 
slow process. The emigrant has strong, rich blood 
in his heart. Here is our strength and our weak- 
ness. 

In that county, in those few weeks, there settled 
Canadians, English, Danes, Bohemians, Swedes, 
Poles, Irish, Germans, German Prussians, Italians, 
and Frenchmen. Heathen, I liad almost called 
them. No : there were many loyal Christians 
among them, thank God ! But by far the larger 
lialf of them brought idols with them — principles 
more dangerous to our institutions than an invad- 
ing army with cannons. 

“ For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he,’’ says 
Holy Writ. The spiritual will always body itself 
forth in the temporal history of men,” says Carlyle. 


AGE ON AGES TELLING.' 


105 


^ the side of every religion is to be found a po- 

litical opinion connected with it by affinity/’ says 
De Tocqueville. The most prosperou-s nations 
have been those of the purest religions belief. 
What, then, can be said of the temporal history, 
what of the political opinions, of those who leave 
God out? Ten such heathen, with their white 
faces and anarchist doctrines in America, are more 
dangerous to the cause of Christ in the world than 
ten thousand Buddhists in Asia. To them the 
word ^‘America” means a vague short-cut to riches 
without earning them. We realize this when some 
Johnstown horror startles the world. It is our 
foreign population that crowd our penitentiaries 
and insane asylums. True, the Socialist leaders 
settle in our great cities, but they receive an alarm- 
ing amount of support from our foreign farming 
population. In five years these men become voters. 
“ God forgive our fathers that they made our ballot 
so cheap.” 

In the midst of such a population, amid such 
temptations, your Richard, your boy, is fighting 
for the great King. Often his heart is very heavy, 
he is almost ready to give up. He thinks the folks 
at home do not care for the West. Mammon is 
god there, but why should not your boy worship 
Mammon? Man’s nature recpiires something to 
worship ; if he forsakes your God, he must find 
him another. No one can go without some god in 
his heart ; so it is the old story of the gods of the 


106 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


Canaaiiites, and the anger of the Lord was hot 
against them. 

The average Westerner means to attend to his 
soul in time to save it; but first he gets started in 
business and buys land. 

A careful census of Boom City disclosed the fact 
that there were just twenty-nine families in town 
who were in the habit of attending a church of any 
denomination. All these had recently borne the 
expense of a long journey and of beginning life 
anew. They never had felt so poor in all their 
lives as when the subject of a churcli began to be 
talked of in Boom City. In reality there never 
had been a time when they could command so little 
ready money. Richard Rogers was the only busi- 
ness man who cared about a church. Dr. Harvey 
was poor. He had been nicely settled in the East 
when a terrible scourge of diphtheria had taken his 
only child from him and ruined his wife’s health. 
It was in the hope of re-establishing her strength 
by a favorable change of climate that he sought a 
home in the West. Mr. Garrett mitrht be best de- 
scribed as a faithful man. His wife was ,not a 
church-member, but she held religious opinions. 
These five people were the recognized religious 
leaders of Boom City. They agreed that something 
must be done. It was decided that all should at- 
tempt to secure the attention of their own denomi- 
nation. The first to succeed was to be joined by 
the others. In the mean time they did not discuss 


^ AN AGE ON AGES TELLING: 


107 


their creeds. There was no wrangling about the 
way we did back East. 

It is no time to discuss church government and 
election when thousands on thousands are living 
in homesickness and poverty, with no one to tell 
them of Him who was a man of sorrows and 
who had not where to lay his head,’’ that he 
might know how to comfort them. I am glad these 
people realized just that. 

Earnest letters to Christian workers left Boom 
City by the Eastern mail. Almost before they 
looked for an answer a state missionary was on the 
ground. A church of twenty-seven members was 
organized. Some professed Christians declined to 
join it because it was not their church ; some had 
no interest in church matters. What ])roportion 
of your church-members would live out their relig- 
ion, faithfully, openly, should they move West? 
Some joined this church who never before had be- 
longed to any church. 

Mrs. Dietrich and I want to be branded in this 
round-up,” said Lon Dietrich. Boom City people 
were discovering undreamed-of veins of gold in his 
character. 

Mr. Garrett, Dr. Harvey, and Kichard Rogers 
were elected church-deacons. I say ^‘deacons” ad- 
visedly. That is a good name for a church-officer 
— there is Scripture for it’s use. Meetings could 
be held in the school-house just finishing. Two of 
the deacons were on the school board. Nebraska 


108 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


sees to it that school-houses are built and schools 
iiiaiutained. 

Then there was a time of anxious watching and 
])rayer. Could they have a minister ? Why did 
not the board, or some committee or somebody 
somewhere, do something toward helping them sup- 
port a minister? “By the way,^’ they asked them- 
selves, “where is the man, provided we could sup- 
port him?’’ 

Macaulay says, “ Laws exist in vain for those 
who have not the courage and means to defend 
them.” It might as truly be said that religious 
faiths exist in vain for those who have not the cour- 
age, means, and will to spread them. 

That little band of Cliristians did all they could 
to help themselves. More gospel meetings were 
held, and they spared neither their time nor their 
voices to make them attractive. In a measure they 
succeeded. People came out to meetings. It 
seemed that they divided themselves into three 
classes and took turns in attending meetings, thus 
giving a variety to the congregations. 

Meantime many slurs were cast upon the church 
and upon Christians. Many people said they would 
believe in the church if church-people acted as 
though they meant business. Others repeated that 
the Lord had no business in that country. The 
Christians waited, worked, and prayed. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


GOING BY THE BOOK. 

“ No one fulfills the plan of his creation 
Who cannot say 

That he has led one soul from willful blindness 
Into the day.” 

HE bar-room was made very sweet and pure — 



-L almost homelike — before Whistler was carried 
into it. That, at first, was all Lon could do to atone 
for his crimes, for Whistler shrank from him in fear, 
and muttered stran2:e thino-s of Robbie leanino: 
agaiust his chest. It was hard for Lon to give up, 
for he wanted to do something for AVhistler. The 
fever seemed to lessen, though the pain and danger 
did not, and the boy was conscious a good deal of 
the time. 

This is fine,^’ AVhistler said one evening when 
Richard was sitting by him. 

The boy had been lying quiet, with wide-open 
eyes, looking at the high-art roses on the wall-paper. 

I am glad you like it,’’ Richard replied with 
all a nurse’s discretion. 

“ It makes a fellow hate to take to the road 
again,” the boy went on, as if planning to move. 


109 


no BICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN, 

‘MVhat makes you tliink of it?” asked Richard, 
intent on the problem of \yhistler’s life. 

’Cause.” 

^ ’Cause ’ is no good reason. . Tell me the rest 
of it.” 

Do you know how I came amongst your tim- 
ber?” 

Yes.” 

What be you goin’ to do with me ?” 

‘^Give you a drink of milk pretty soon, and tell 
you to go to sleep.” 

What is Lou up to ?” 

Working at his trade. Did you know that he 
was a carpenter once on a time?” 

Who tends the saloon?” 

Nobody.” 

“ Nobody ?” repeated Whistler. 

We have no saloon now. Or, at least, Lon 
closed up, and public opinion is pretty strong 
against that sort of thing now.” 

What made him ?” 

‘‘Who?” 

“ Lon.” 

“ His little one died. Since then he has not 
wanted to have a saloon.” 

“ Robbie dead ! He was a peart little fellow.” 

“ Yes ; I liked Robbie. See here, Whistler ; 
Lon Dietrich is sorry he tried to get you into trou- 
ble. He told me so. He wants to do something 
for you — something to show he is sorry. He 


GOING BY THE BOOK. 


Ill 


would like to take care of you. You need not be 
afraid of him any more. Ihis is the room that 
used to be the saloon. Lou fixed it all nice for 
you.’’ 

“ Is Lon going by the book ?” 

^MVhat book?” 

Your black book.” 

‘‘Yes, Lon is going by my black book. Would 
you like to go by it too?” 

“ It would be mighty fine, but I can’t.” 

“ You could learn to go by it.” 

“How did you fix it?” 

“Fix what?” 

“ About that night — Lon and you.” 

“We fixed it by the book.” 

“ All square, and the law haiut no hold on us ?” 

“Yes, it’s all square.” 

Richard thought of what the doctor had said 
that morning. There was a chance for Whistler’s life. 
There were so many against it that those moments 
of perfect consciousness and comparative freedom 
from pain were very precious. Richard took up 
the book and opened it. 

“ Let me read you what the book says about 
Lon and you and me.” 

“ Whistler’s eyes grew larger and brighter as 
Richard read : 

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. 

“ But I say unto you. Love your enemies, bless 


112 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


tliem that curse you, aucl pray for tliem wliicli de- 
spitefully use you and persecute you, 

That ye may be the children of your Father 
Avhich is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise 
on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on 
the just and on the unjust. 

For if ye love them which love you, what re- 
ward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 

And if ye salute your brethren only, what do 
ye more than others? do not even the publicans 
so? 

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father 
which is in heaven is perfect.’^ 

I could manage that, but I couldn’t be a Chris- 
tian,” Whistler observed. His theology was some- 
what mixed. 

“What do you think a Christian is?” 

“ A good-looking, nervy fellow that has some 
sand, and alius does the square thing.” 

“And you couldn’t do that?” 

“Am not sure to alius do it.” 

“ I think a Christian is a man, woman, or child 
who gets up in the morning and asks God’s help to 
be brave and honest, to speak the truth, and to do 
the square thing. Then he goes on, remembering 
that God sees him, and does just the best thing he 
can all day. It does not matter how poor or rough 
his work is : God has use for every one. I read 
you once how the Son of God came to this world 
and died for us.” 


GOING BY THE BOOK. 


113 


Yes,’’ said' Whistler ; ^^he was Jesus Christ, the 
first and last. He saves, and he alone.” 

Yes, he was just that. AVhen he lived in this 
world he was very poor. Some of the time he worked 
at the carpenter’s trade ; some of the time he went 
from ])lace to place teaching the people and healing 
the sick. The Bible says he himself had not where 
to lay his head.” 

He was a tramp too!” the boy exclaimed, his 
face brightening. 

“ I suspect that some people called him a tramp. 
Now, he did all this, not because he had to, for he 
was the Son of God and owned the whole world, 
but he did it because he loved us so much — loved 
everybody then in the world, and everybody who 
was going to be born. He came and lived just the 
hardest sort of a life because he wanted to know 
what hard lives were like. He wanted to know 
how to be sorry for you and me. He said, ^ Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest.” That means that he will 
help and comfort everybody who will trust him and 
pray to him, and it will rest them to know he is 
going to do it.” 

I can manage the rest if you will do the pray- 
in’,” the boy said wearily. 

Taking the weak white hands in his own, Rich- 
ard knelt beside the bed. The tender touch brought 
a strange sensation to Whistler’s eyes. Richard 
prayed : 


114 


TJCIIAEI) ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


‘^Almighty Gofl, our heavenly Father, Whistler 
wants to learn to be a Christian. Wilt thon show 
him how to be a brave, manly Christian ? wilt thou 
forgive his sins and make him know that they are 
forgiven? Help him to do the square thing evejy 
time. Wilt thou help him to be patient, and bear 
Ids pain in a manly, Giervy ’ way? If it can be 
thy will, wilt thou bless onr care of him and make 
him well again? But, O God, if thou hast some- 
thing better than this life for Whistler, if thou art 
going to take him home to live in one of thy many 
mansions in heaven, wilt thou make him ready for 
a home with thee? All this we ask in the name 
and for the sake of Jesus Christ, who died on the 
cross for us, for AVhistler and me, because he loved 
us. Amen.’’ 

Prayin’ is easy work, after all. I could do that 
myself;” and Whistler turued his head on his pil- 
low and went to sleep. 

After that Lon took a great deal of care of 
Whistler, sometimes holding him for hours during 
fearful paroxysms of pain. All Boom City wanted 
to do something to help Lon’s atonement ; but 
Whistler’s days were too few. One night, six 
Aveeks after that first gospel meeting, Bichard sat 
on the bed holding Whistler against his breast. 
The boy could not breathe when lying down. Lon 
used the fan industriously while Mrs. Garrett bathed 
his face almost tenderly. The doctor kept his fin- 
gers on the boy’s pulse or laid his ear against his 


GOING BY THE BOOK. 


115 


chest ; sometimes he forced a spoonful of something 
between his lips. 

Tlie great blue eyes opened and looked straight 
uj) into Richard’s face. 

“ I’m going on, I’m going by the book,” the 
boy whispered ; I am — going — by the book. I 
am — going — to — die — by — the book.” 

And Whistler’s last tramp was over. 


CHAPTER XrV. 


HOW UNDINE CAME TO BOOM CITY. 

“ Angels on gracious errands went, 

In olden time, o’er land and sea ; 

Love came to earth, by Heaven lent 


To teach what life is meant to be. 


This angel artist paints a home. 

Then gives the picture wmndrous light, 
That men, where’er they toil and roam, 
May keep the vision pure in sight; 

A guiding star, it ever shines 

Through all the shadows cast by sin. 

And beckons those whose strength declines. 
Till tempted ones the battle win.” 


HE train is three hours late.’’ So said the 



-L ticket-agent, in a tone which fate itself would 
not dare dispute. 

Richard Rogers looked at his watch and then out 
of the window. That is, he tried to look out of 
the window. The night was so dark that he saw 
nothing but the rain-drops which spattered against 
the glass, and the absolute blackness beyond. 

Eight and three are eleven — it will be twelve 
before that train gets here,” he said to himself, and 
then began to whistle In the sweet by and by.” 
Not that he was conscious that the evening train 


116 


HOW UNDINE CAME TO BOOM CITY. 117 

was in any .way connected with the sweet by and 
by, but because he wanted to express himself in 
some way. 

The mail-carrier flung the outgoing mail-bag 
into the corner, threw himself down beside it, laid 
his head upon it, and went to sleep. 

Be sure you are here at eleven o’clock,’’ said 
Bichard to Davidson, the ’bus-driver. There is 
a lady on this train — our new teacher.” 

^^All right; I’ll remember,” this graceless son 
of David replied, and straightway drove back to 
the hotel, put up his horses, and went to bed. 

Richard Rogers took himself to his office, read 
until train-time, then, in rubber boots and ‘^slicker,” 
splashed his way back to the station. 

The train came at last, but, I grieve to say, 
Davidson did not. Two traveling men, prepared 
for the rain, got out of the car and immediately 
struck out for the hotel. The conductor helped a 
lady down the steps, and Richard Rogers held his 
umbrella over her while he said. 

Miss Geddes, I believe. I am Richard Rogers, 
director of the school board. Come this way, 
please.” 

“ I am so glad you are here,” said Miss Geddes 
in a doleful tone. 

By the light from the conductor’s lantern she 
saw the outlines of a tall somebody who drew her 
arm through his, took her satchel, and led her into 
a room the blackness and darkness of wdiich was 


118 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


appalling. The station-agent passed, through the 
waiting-room, and the light from his lantern sug- 
gested something which might be a bench. 

^‘Sit down and wait a moment, please, while I 
see about your baggage and then liichard Kogers 
went out on the platform, where the agent was 
swearing about a sample -case. The damp air 
bore this scrap of conversation to Miss Geddes’ 
ears : 

‘‘I say, Dimrnick, what is the matter with your 
lamp? Seems to me we might have this thing 
lighted up.’’ 

Can’t expect one to light this here building all 
night.” There was a deafening banging of trunks, 
and then the words : I tell you that ’bus ain’t 
coinin’. Can’t expect Davidson to be here all 
hours of the night.” 

He said he would. I am quite sure he said he 
would remember there was a lady to go to the 
hotel.” 

Can’t say he don’t remember it. But you have 
got left if you expected him to come back in the 
night. He never does. Can’t she walk?” 

I sha’n’t ask her to. Now, see here. You 
light up that waiting-room of yours, and build a 
fire, and be mighty civil to her, or I’ll swear in a 
complaint against you before you are a day older. 
I’ll fetch Davidson, or he’ll wish I had.” 

Richard Rogers went back to the waiting-room 
and said, 


HOW UNDINE CAME TO BOOM CITY. 119 


Miss Geddes, I hardly dare hope you ever cau 
forgive me for my blundering ; but that ^bus-driver 
is not here. I must ask you to wait here till I 
fetch him.^^ 

While sjx^aking he struck a match on the wall. 
It was damp there, and the match did not light; 
he tried another match and another spot on the side 
of the room. The result was a little blue flame and 
a good deal of smoke. He carefully shaded this 
with his hand while he took the chimney from a 
bracket-lamp. 

Caift I walk to the hotel 

I am afraid not. You are not prepared for the 
rain and Richard glanced inquiringly in the direc- 
tion of the lady’s feet. 

I have no overshoes on ; but I don’t mind get- 
ting wet,” the lady replied, in a voice which told 
jdainly that she did mind being left there alone 
with the dreadful station-agent. 

^‘You must not try to walk. Keep up your 
courage, and I will be bock right soon.” Away he 
went through the darkness. 

Here I stay my hand. Doubtless I should tell 
you that Miss Jennella Geddes, teacher, endured 
this waiting with calm philosophy. But she did not. 
Miss Geddes did just what I did under circum- 
stances painfully like these — she put her face be- 
tween her hands and cried. 

The lamp burned dimly and gave out a sicken- 
ing smell; the ticket-agent still slammed things; 


120 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


the rain came right down through the roof. There 
was the sound of water dripping all. about her — 
drops of it spattered in her face. Yes, tears were 
quite in keeping with it all. It was a painfully 
])rosaic beginning for life in the free, poetical West. 
Miss Geddes was of the opinion that Richard Rog- 
ers never would come back. Her whole future 
seemed covered with darkness and storms. She 
was afraid of the surly being banging things in the 
next room. 

Richard Rogers, going hastily along the street 
in pursuit of the delinquent ’bus-driver, saw a 
light in Dr. Harvey’s barn. The doctor was just 
beginning to unharness his horse. When the facts 
of the case were ex})lained to him he refastened 
the buckles and backed the carriage out of the 
barn. Then, having seen Richard on his way to 
the station, the doctor went into the house and 
helped his wife prepare a welcome for their unex- 
pected guest. 

Richard Rogers pretended not to know that Miss 
Geddes had been crying. He wrapped a water- 
}>ro()f around her, saying, “ I am not sure but you 
have been the gainer by this. I am going to take 
you to Mrs. Harvey’s instead of the hotel.” 

Mrs. Harvey was standing in the doorway with 
a lamp in her hand. The light drove out the dark- 
ness, giving the house a kind of glory. 

Richard drove close to the doorsteps, and the 
doctor lifted Miss Geddes from the carriage to the 


HOW UNDINE CAME TO D003I CITY. 121 


tlireshold of his home. Then the two men dis- 
creetly went to the barn to care for the horse while 
Mrs. Harvey made her guest welcome. 

Oh, Miss Geddes, I am so glad Mr. Rogers 
brought you here instead of taking you to that 
awful hotel, said Mrs. Harvey as she removed the 
dripping waterproof and drew forward a willow 
rocker. The doctor and I were going to meet you 
and go over to the hotel with you. We thought it 
would make it seem more like coming among 
friends. But the doctor was called into the coun- 
try (yon never can depend on doctors) and the 
storm came on. He got back only as Mr. Rogers 
was going after the Tiis-di-iver. AVe have you safe 
now, at all events, in our own house, and we will 
make you forg<‘t your first rainy, wretched impres- 
sions of Boom City.’’ 

Dr. Harvey was struggling with an umbrella 
and saying, ‘‘Come in, Richard — come in and have 
a cup of coffee. You don’t leave me to do all the 
apologizing alone. Figuratively speaking, I am 
covered with sackcloth and ashes.” But when he 
shook hands with Miss Geddes he said, 

“Miss Geddes, I feel as though the Boom City 
school board ought to wear mourning for thirty 
days. As moderator of the board, perhaps I 
ought to set the fashion. It is difficult for me to 
express rny sense of the shabbiness of our treat- 
ment of yon.” 

“ It will not be difficult for me to expres^ my 


122 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


opinion of that ’ bn s-d river, to-morrow/^ Richard 
averred as he gave Miss Geddes his hand. 

“ We must not be too hard on him/^ Miss Ged- 
des replied quite good-humoredly. ‘‘I am not 
sure I should meet a belated train were I in his 
place.^^ 

They all sat down around the fire and said what 
an awful storm it was. Mrs. Harvey repeated that 
the ’bus-driver was a wretch, and Richard reiterated 
his opinion of that unsatisfactory person. They 
all agreed that he would be apt to be there next 
time. Mrs. Harvey brought in some coffee, and 
the doctor passed some biscuits and cold meats. 
Richard Rogers looked at Miss Geddes and won- 
dered if this were she. 

She was neither small nor willowy. She had no 
appearance of being frail. Indeed, she was five feet 
four inches tall, and weighed one hundred and forty 
pounds. Her face was round and dimpled, with a 
very white skin, through which reddish-brown freck- 
les showed across the bridge of her nose. She had a 
good deal of healthy color in her cheeks, a tinkling 
sort of a laugh, very white teeth, and reddish- 
brown eyes with changing lights in them. Her 
dark-red hair was combed straight uj) from a full, 
broad, rather low forehead, and flatly coiled on her 
head just where the phrenologist would locate the 
bump of obstinacy. It gave her head a rounded, 
compact appearance. Her hair had never been 
banged ; there were no tendril-like curls about her 


now UNDINE CAME TO E003I CITY. 123 


brow. She v/as dressed in a dark-gray flannel suit, 
having found this to be an economical color. It 
showed neither chalk, dust, nor darning. For 
flnancial reasons she seldom brightened her cos- 
tumes with ribbons. But when one had caught the 
light in her eyes and noted the rich coloring of 
her hair, one did not stop to think of her dress, save 
that it was becoming. Jennella Geddes was fun- 
loving, tender-hearted, energetic ; she had a faculty 
for rousing people. One moment you thought her 
a lovely woman ; the next she appeared a willful 
child. She had taken her childhood on with her 
into womanhood. 

The Geddes children were universally feminine. 
Being poor, these girls must earn their own living. 
Jennella was as anxious to have a good time as she 
was to earn her living. Six months before she 
came to Boom City she was graduated from an 
Eastern State normal school. Of all the mischief 
in which she had been a leader during her school 
course, only her teachei’S, in moments of deep dejec- 
tion, could tell you. Still, every one of them loved 
the girl ; and, after making her promise to leave 
off* her schoolgirl tricks and lead an entirely differ- 
ent life, the principal of the school recommended 
her to the Boom City school board. Never did a 
girl leave home more fearlessly or with higher 
hopes. 

“Undine might have had that look in her eyes 
before she was endowed with a soul,’^ Mrs. Harvey 


124 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


said as she measured some Graham flour for “gems” 
the next morning. 

The doctor laughed. His wife paused in stirring 
the batter and looked'up questioningly. 

“ Richard and I were talking of our ideal women 
one day before you came. I recommended Undine 
to him. He has soul enough to divide with some- 
body. It is a better quality of soul than Knight 
Huldbrand’s in the story.” 

“^She reminds me of the Platte Piver,” Mrs. Har- 
vey went on. “There are two currents in her na- 
ture, I think. The upper one seems flowing on, 
all life and brightness. But that is not all. The 
other one, working away deep down in her soul, 
like the lower current working through the quick- 
sands in the bottom of the Platte, is the one that 
will decide the kind of a woman she is to be. She 
needs to get in love with somebody — with just the 
right somebody and Mrs. Harvey placed the last 
gem in the oven. 

“ How do you know she has not been in love a 
dozen times?” the doctor inquired while he criti- 
cally surveyed the new range. 

“ Because ;” and Mrs. Harvey spread the .cloth 
on the break fast- table. 

“ ‘ Because ’ is a woman^s reason.” 

“ Yes, and therefore I give it.” Mrs. ITarvey 
went round the table and stood before her husband. 
T hen she raised her arms and laid both hands upon 
his shoulders. “ Because, dear, I have been a girl 


HOW UNDINE CAME TO BOOM CITY. 125 

myself, and have gone deeply into love. I know 
that her love will change her as my love did me. 
She is a child now; some day she will be a woman 
— and a grand one.’’ 


CHAPTER XV. 

HIGH LIGHTS AND DEEP SHADOWS. 


“ Never has woman bemoaned the fact that she too had 
missed life’s crowning joy, in sadder language than man’s 
strong hand has penned with a stormy and sorrowful heart 
behind- tlie words. ‘ He who wrote home’s sweetest song ne’er 
had home of his own ’ So sang Will Carleton of gentle John 
Howard Payne. ‘ Heimweh ’ or ‘ home-ache,’ that stronger, 
tenderer Avord for ‘ homesick,’ coined by the Germans, Avas in- 
dubitably coined by men. ‘ Blessed are the homesick, for they 
shall go home,’ Avas a holy thought smitten from a man’s, and 
not a Avoman’s, heart.” 

AS, by reason of his environment, the force, in 
art, of properly managed liglits and shades 
suggested itself to Rembrandt, so, on the day 
known in Boom City history as that Sunday,’’ 
there came to Lena Harvey the ins])iration to con- 
trast the deep shadows of ignorance and sin with the 
higli lights of Cliristian culture. Life in that hotel 
had otherwise been intolerable to that home-loving 
woman — nearly as intolerable as her husband had 
found it before her coming, and as dismal as it had 
been to Richard Rogers. The hotel life was varied 
by long drives which the doctor’s increasing prac- 
tice gave them. The cottage was built immediately. 
The doctor and his wife did an endless amount of 
126 


HIGH LIGHTS AND DEEP SHADOWS. 127 


planning for the four-roomed home. It was very 
like a second honeymoon, that nest-building in the 
West ; so much thought must be spent on doors 
and windows, so much on cellar stairs and chim- 
neys. The housewife must consult her husband as 
to where her piano should stand, where his book- 
case should be placed, and which way every door 
should swing. She must advise with Lon Dietrich 
as to kitchen closets and sinks, as to the best place 
on the lot to put the frame for the clothes-line; for 
that Harvey cottage was Lon Dietrich’s first work 
after he went back to his trade and put up a new 
sign which read : 

Lox Dietrich, 

City Contractor and Builder. 

The Harvey home had become the centre of the 
refining influences of Boom City. To reach and 
help the overworked, discouraged, suffering, and 
afflicted had become the ambition of Lena Harvey’s 
life. To this she made her talents, her tastes, her 
time, and her strength tributary. And she suc- 
ceeded. Whatever their station, whether high or 
low, men stand with uncovered heads before this 
soi-t of a woman. Women love her too, and take 
their joys and their sorrows to her. Mrs. Dietrich 
went to see Mrs. Harvey when she missed Robbie 
so much that she could not endure the rooms in 
which he would never play again ; Mrs. Harvey’s 
arms were empty too. Mrs. Garrett w^ent to see 


128 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


!Mrs. Harvey when she was discouraged because he 
did not get ou better iu a business way. The habit 
of being discouraged is hard to cure — like tlie 
morphine habit. When one gets to looking at the 
dark side, it is hard to see the bright. 

The Harvey household was the only one in Boom 
City with which Richard Rogers could be called on 
intimate terms. He was there very often. He al- 
ways went away with a homesick feeling. It w'as 
such a home as he ought to have and did not 
have. Some one holds the theory that if the soul 
be assured that some time it will find its mate, it 
can be content to dwell alone. This young man 
felt that somewhere in the world was a being who 
could make his life all that a human life should be. 
The more he felt this the more lonely he was and 
the more he missed something. But where to find 
her? He would have traveled any distance in 
search of her, had he known in which direction to 
go. -As he did not know, he contented himself with 
watching for her appearance in Boom City. Can 
this be she?” he asked himself while Miss Geddes 
clung to his arm in the rain. He asked the ques- 
tion again when the light from the lamp in Mrs. 
Harv^ey’s hand first showed him her face. As he 
sipped his coifee he asked it again. In the region 
of his heart there was a sensation the like of which 
he never had experienced before. He answered the 
question^ and then wondered how Miss Geddes 
would one day answer it. For mouths his life was 


HIGH LIGHTS AND DEEP SHADOWS. 129 


sad or glad according to his fancy of what her an- 
swer might be. 

It was two weeks before Miss Geddes could ar- 
range about a boarding-place. In the mean time 
she stayed with the Harveys. Every day she 
gained their love more and more ; every day the 
name of Undine seemed more and more appro- 
priate for her. 

Ilichard found some excuses and many invita- 
tions to call on the Harveys in those days. He 
was becoming more and more painfully aware how 
ugly and uncomfortable his office was when con- 
sidered as a home. As the home-ache grew 
upon him it lent a look of care to his face. The 
doctor noticed it, and took the responsibility all on 
himself. 

^^You stay in your office and think over the 
wretched state of business far too much, my boy,’’ 
said the doctor as he met Richard in the post-office 
one afternoon. ‘‘ Come over to sujiper this even- 
ing, and we will make you forget business. I will 
tell Lena that you will be on hand at six o’clock 
sharp.” 

And he was. The supper and the evening were 
a success — such an evening as four people enjoy 
perfectly when these four people have been selected 
with care. 

Mrs. Harvey had been playing the delicious lit- 
tle melodies that tired pe6j)le enjoy. She rose from 
the piano and went back to her rocking-chair. 

9 


130 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


They were all silent for a time, thinking of the 
music and watching the fire. Then their thoughts 
wandered to less beautiful themes. Richard felt 
his responsibility as a Director of the Board of 
Education. 

Miss Geddes,” he questioned, how do you get 
along with those Bohemian children 

Miss Geddes made a wry face, shrugged her 
shoulders, but did not speak. The doctor laughed. 

I do not know how I am getting along,’’ Miss 
Geddes said. ‘‘Those children do not know one 
word of English, and they are dreadful.” 

“ I see you are getting new ideas as to the hered- 
itary traits of some families,” the doctor observed. 

“ I don’t know much about the children,” Richard 
went on, “ but the old man comes to my office once 
in a while, and I don’t enjoy him much.” 

“I was over there a few weeks ago,” rejoined 
the doctor. “ A rattlesnake — that is, they said it 
was a rattlesnake — ‘ sampled ’ one of those young- 
sters. The whole of them were terribly scared. 
It did not seem to hurt the boy ; I don’t know 
whether it injured the snake very materially or not, 
not being called to attend him. Oh, those Bohe- 
mians are a tough lot. There is something in the 
Bible about setting a watch upon our lips. I 
should want to set a watch upon my head if I had 
to go there very frequently.” 

“Why, Will !” cried Mrs. Harvey. 

“ Fact, my dear.” 


HIGH LIGHTS AND DEEP SHADOWS. 131 


I think the Swedes are the most desirable of 
the foreign population in this precinct/’ said Richard 
thoughtfully. 

‘ Information stews out of him like otto of 
roses out of an otter/ ” the doctor quoted wick- 
edly. 

‘‘Will Harvey, how you talk to-night! What 
ails you ?” and the good wife looked helplessly at 
her shocking husband. 

“ Reaction, my dear. I have said some things 
to-day that were neither funny nor foolish. I have 
been through some heart-rending scenes, you know 
— scenes which, through God’s good providence, are 
not common. Those children were fearfully burned 
in that prairie-fire yesterday. I wish I could for- 
get them for a few minutes ; I wish I could stop 
thinking of their poor parents in their anxiety and 
distress ; I wish I could stop thinking of anything 
for a little while. Miss Geddes, did you see the 
prairie-fires last night?” 

“Yes; I watched them for hours. I have a 
sort of pagan worship for fire.” 

“ I have a Christian horror of some of its effects,” 
the doctor observed. 

“ Still, fire is the sublimest* thing in nature.” 

“Do you think it more sublime than water?” 

“ Perhaps not. It is not so dangerous.” 

“ Water is not so troublesome here,” said the 
doctor, keeping up his practical strain. 

“ Mr. Rogers, I think Miss Geddes is going to 


132 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


become as enthusiastic as I am over prairie scen- 
ery,” said Mrs. Harvey. 

Enthusiasm is catching,” the doctor observed 
with striking originality. 

The prairies are pictures to me,” said Miss 
Geddes. The lights are so soft, so delicate. Mo- 
ran’s etchings have just that light. Since I have 
been here I have a great desire to see an etching of 
the prairie — as it is off south, for instance. No 
houses — not even a soddie. I would have the over- 
land trail show in the foreground, and then lose 
itself. Perhaps I would call the picture ‘The Un- 
known Way.’ ” 

“ It would give a grand perspective; but I am 
inclined to think your picture would be a sad one,” 
said Mrs. Harvey. 

“ You are something of an artist, are you not ?” 
Eichard asked. He was looking at Miss Geddes, 
and did not need to use her name. 

“Yes,” the young lady replied composedly; “ I 
have hundreds of pictures in my mind, but I never 
painted even — ” 

“Your face,” said the merciless medical man 
from the couch where he was lounging. 

“ I never painted even a ‘plate’ as the boys say ;” 
and !Miss Geddes ignored the doctor. 

“You will see few enough pictures here, save 
those in your mind,” said Eichard. 

“Yes; but there is a big lot of nature lying 
around loose,” the doctor observed. “Haven’t I 


HIGH LIGHTS AND DEEP SHADOWS. 133 


heard somebody say that it is to Nature herself that 
all artists must go, first and last ?’^ 

Miss Geddes was looking at the fire, and did 
not se'fem to care to make further remarks on this 
subject. Presently she said. 

Dr. Harvey, what shall I do with all those 
Swedes, Bohemians, German-s, and all the rest of 
them?'’ 

Miss Geddes, as Moderator of the Board of 
Education I would say that Boom City would be 
pleased to have you answer that little question." 

“Of course I know that they must come to 
school and that I must teach them ; they must be 
educated — civilized. That's just what it troubles me 
to do. I would not mind so much if they could all 
speak American, and weren't so — " Miss Geddes 
paused, and no one finished her sentence. 

“ Miss Geddes is right," said Richard, carrying 
the thought higher than that young lady intended. 
“ When we have taugiit them our language and our 
ways we have but just begun with them. These 
foreigners must be Christianized if we mean Amer- 
ica to be a free country fifty years from now. ^ The 
world by wisdom knew not God ' is just as true as 
when Paul wrote his epistles. The present state of 
things in India shows that it is idle to talk of the 
saving power of education, only as it goes hand in 
hand with Christian training and Christian living. 
Knowledge is one of the blessings that can be 
abused." 


134 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


After Richard went back to his office that night 
he got a smooth board and measured off some 
shelves. He whistled and sung, sawed and ham- 
mered, in the serene consciousness that his racket 
disturbed no one. When the shelves were done 
he unpacked his long- neglected library. Perhaps 
he owned some books that Miss Geddes might find 
helpful to her in some way. He would be glad to 
do anything to help her. He formed several strict- 
ly philanthropical resolutions, but he sang Watts’ 
good old hymn : 

“ Happy the heart where graces reign, 

Where love inspires the breast : 

Love is the brightest of the train, 

And strengthens all the rest. 

“ Knowledge — alas ! tis all in vain, 

And all in vain our fears ; 

Our stubborn sins will fight and reign 
If love be absent there.” 

Dr. Harvey, passing by Richard’s office in an- 
swer to a summons from a croupy child, heard the 
song, paused one instant to look in at the window, 
then hastened on his way with a broad and happy 
smile on his face. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 

“ Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and 
each invokes his aid against tlie other. It may seem strange 
that any man should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in 
wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces ; but 
let us not judge, that we be not judged. The prayer of both 
could not be answered. That of neither has been answered 
fully. The Almighty has his own purposes.” — Lincoln's 
Second Inaugural Address. 

is twelve dollars a -ton/’ Mrs. Dietrich 

\J remarked as they began rolling the com- 
fort. 

ThaPs why there were so few out to prayer- 
meeting last night/’ said Mrs. Annis Garrett as her 
eyes ran along the frames to make sure that they 
were rolling evenly. Then, as she placed the bolt 
in the corner of the frame and pounded it in with 
tlie ])alm of her hand, she added : I wonder if 
that is why some who did come had to go ‘away 
before meetin’ was out?” 

Mrs. Dietrich was bending over the work ; she 
lifted her eyes appealingly to Mrs. Harvey, and 
then replied to Mrs. Garrett: 

The house was so, cold that I did not dare to 
stay. I have not been well since Robbie died.” 

135 


136 RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAK 

Do you suppose the Lord is going to let you 
take cold while you are sittin’ in his prayer-meet- 
ing?’’ Mrs. Garrett asked in her most belligerent 
tone. “ Some people never can enjoy religion when 
they have cold feet.” 

I don’t suppose the Lord is going to change 
the laws of health because we are too poor or too 
indolent to obey them,” Mrs. Harvey observed 
quietly. “Who was it that said, ‘For physical 
sins there is no remission ’ ?” 

“ I don’t remember now,” Mrs. Wickliffe rejoined ; 
“ but it is very true, whoever said it.” 

“It does seem as if I would not be afraid to 
trust the Lord.” Mrs. Garrett put a good deal of 
emphasis in that sentence. She was threading a 
big needle with red yarn which they were using 
in tying the comfort. She carefully held the ends 
of the yarn together and slipped the needle along 
to the middle, then added, “ That is, I would not be 
afraid to trust the Lord if I was a Christian at all. 
I’ts a shame to have them prayer-meetings so thinly 
attended. They ought to be crowded full of people 
every night.” 

“ r have been thinking a good deal about those 
prayer-meetings, and praying about them too,” said 
Mrs. Wickliffe. “ It costs so much to heat the 
school-house for an evening. Our church has so 
many expenses now. It certainly is not right to 
use the school coal. It is not safe to sit there as 
we did last night. Why can’t we have cottage 


THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 


J37 


prayer-meetings — have them in our houses? They 
do in many places in the East.’^ 

“ Moses and I were there, and we stayed through 
the meeting; so did you and Mr. Wickliffe.’^ There 
was a fold iu Mrs. Garrett^s brow that day, and she 
displayed au astonishing amount of energy iu the way 
she tied that knot. “ I did not notice that Moses 
was any the worse for it, either.’’ 

“ I think that is a good idea, Mrs. Wickliffe,” 
said Mrs. Harvey. I am sure we would be very 
glad to have meetings here, and I think many other 
people would like to have them.” 

They cut the work from the frames, and Mrs. 
Dietrich took the comfort on her lap and began to 
finish the edges. 

The Ladies’ Aid Society of the First Church of 
Boom City was making up bedding to be sold in 
stores. There was a large society that day, partly 
t)ecause those societies were an event iu the lives 
of the Boom City women, and partly because Mrs. 
Harvey had personally invited every woman iu 
the place who could be supposed to have any pos- 
sible interest in church affairs. Mrs. Harvey had 
planned to make that society the purest social cen- 
tre in that town. And Mrs. Harv^ey had her trials, 
as well as the rest of us who have undertaken just 
that sort of thing. Trials seemed fairly to radiate 
from Mrs. Garrett in those days. Her mental and 
spiritual vision narrowed down when cold weather 
came. In shutting the door of her little one- 


138 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


roomed house, she seemed to -shut out tlie world of 
good-humor in which slie had lived during the 
summer. The ladies of the society sometimes 
came sharply upon Mrs. Garrett’s other side. It 
surprised them. They felt sorry for Moses. 

Mrs. Garrett, how much cotton would you put 
in this comfort?” Mrs. Harvey asked. ‘^This is 
mine, and I don’t like it too heavy. I am going 
to have it tied with that delicate shade of yellow. 
I am very fond of that shade in everything.” 

Five pounds is enough; you might put in six 
if you haven’t many.” 

^^Five pounds does make a nice comfort;” and 
Mrs. Wickliffe took up the cheese-cloth. Mrs. 
Harvey took up one of the side frames and placed 
it on two of the chairs which did duty in holding 
their work. Others helped, and it was not long 
before they were unrolling the batting and spread- 
ing it out. Mrs. Garrett began to tell how much 
of that kind of work she could do in a day, and 
forgot about the prayer-meetings. Mrs. Wickliffe 
listened to Mrs. Garrett and thought about the 
meeting. There was a new arrival — Miss Flora 
Bryan, who was spending the winter with her 
brother, just settled in Boom City. The ladies had 
welcomed Miss Bryan cordially. Already she felt 
at home among them. In great good humor over 
her quilting story, Mrs. Garrett reached, so far to 
shake hands with Miss Bryan that she pushed the 
frames from one chair. They fell to the floor with 


THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 


139 


a crash, one bolt came out of the corner, and spools, 
scissors, and balls of yarn went in all directions. 
There is a good deal of total depravity in quilt- 
f ra m es — so m eti m es. 

^‘Yes,” said Miss Bryan, standing close to the 
stove, I feel the cold very much. I never was so 
far North before.’’ 

Then you must feel it, for this is very severe 
weather, even for us who are used to it and Mrs. 
Harvey placed a low rocker in the very warmest 
corner for Miss Bryan. 

There was a great deal going on in the room, and 
Mrs. Garrett, intent on the comfort, did not notice 
this talk ; but when it was taken from the frames, 
and she sat down to finish the edges, she caught 
these words : 

^^Papa was very rich before the war,” Miss 
Bryan was saying ; he had a great many slaves, 
but of course he lost them all. They never were 
any good after that John Brown affair. Of course 
papa went with the Confederate army. He was an 
officer, and was killed at Gettysburg. Then mamma 
died. Being the oldest, I had all the other chil- 
dren to bring up. I saw some mighty hard times ; 
but now the other girls are married, and Caleton 
has a good start in business. He asked me to come 
here and live with him, and I had nothing else 
to do.” 

The fold in Mrs. Garrett’s brow had deepened 
until her eyebrows almost met. She had twisted 


140 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


her hair tighter than usual that day ; her forehead 
had the look of being stretched like a drum-head. 

“ I am sorry I shook hands with you ; yes, I 
am/^ she exclaimed, sitting straight up and clutch- 
ing her work hard. 

Miss Bryan was cutting out calico pieces and 
bending close over her work ; she raised her face 
with a startled look. 

“Yes, it’s you I mean. I am sorry I shook 
hands with you,” Mrs. Garrett repeated, pointing a 
long forefinger at Miss Bryan. 

“I can’t think what you mean,” cried the South- 
ern lady, catching her work in her hands and rising 
from her chair. 

There was a quick rap at the door. Mrs. Har- 
vey opened it to let Miss Geddes and little Hope 
AYicklifiFe in out of the bitter dust-laden air. Miss 
Geddes stood still by the stove to warm her hands, 
and Hope went straight to her mother’s side. 

“ Sorry you shook hands with me ! I can’t think 
what you mean,” again repeated the bewildered 
Miss Bryan. 

“ Miss Flora Bryan, I will tell you Avhat I mean. 
My boy was killed at Gettysburg. I vowed then 
that I never would forgive the South. My boy ! 
my boy !” and Mrs. Garrett gasped as though she 
felt a cruel hand on her throat. 

“How can I ever forgive the North?” cried 
Miss Bryan. Her mournful eyes blazed with a 
new light ; the rounded outlines of her faded face 


THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 


141 


hardened ; her hands were clenched in fierce vet 
hopeless defiance. The pieces of bright calico fell 
unnoticed around her. 

Mrs. WicklifPe stepped between the two women. 
She laid one hand on Mrs. Garrett’s shoulder, the 
other on Miss Bryan’s arm. Slie looked very slight 
and frail standing between them. 

“ Ladies, we are more than Northerners or South- 
erners. AYe are daughters of the great King. AYe 
are princesses in our own right. Our Elder Broth- 
er was crucified by his enemies, and he forgave 
them.” 

Mrs. AYicklifiPe said just that — no more, no less. 
Then she stooped and began to gather up the calico 
pieces. Afterward Boom City remembered It of 
her and repeated her words over and over again. 

Miss Bryan turned and went into the bedroom, 
and began to put on her cloak. Mrs. Harvey was 
speaking to her in a low tone. Nobody else heard 
the words. Mrs. AYickliffe joined them and went 
with Miss Bryan to the door. 

Mrs. Garrett was nagging Hope AYickliffe. She 
could not resist that temptation, even in her deepest 
gloom. The child drew away from the stern-browed 
woman. Hatred in the heart gives the face an un- 
lovable look. She hated this woman who loved the 
lost cause. The afternoon was almost gone, and she 
wanted to go home and tell Moses. As soon as 
Miss Bryan was safely away she put on her things 
and left the sewing society to itself. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


MOURNING OVER GLORIES GONE. 

Take that banner down ! his tattered ; 
Broken is its staff and shattered, 

And the valiant hosts are scattered 
Over whom it floated high. 

“ Oh, ’tis hard for us to fold it. 

Hard to tliink there’s none to hold it, 
Hard that those who once unfurled it 
Now must furl it with a sigh.” 


— Father Ryan. 


HE dust-storm was over. The wind came now 



J- only in gusts, sometimes flinging vagrant straws 
or prairie-dust contemptuously in the air, then dy- 
ing away in the tail grasses beyond the fire-breaks. 
The clouds added to the glory of the sunset. 

Miss Bryan walked rapidly that night, as people 
are a})t to do when angry. She was passing the 
dwellings of the more well-to-do in Boom City. 
How she hated the name of that street, though she 
knew it had been proudly named ! She knew that 
name never would have been given to a poor or 
neglected place. Boom City people gave it their 
proudest name, for it was their best street. There 
Avere a number of houses of smart modern archi- 


142 


MOURNING OVER GLORIES GONE. 14e3 


tecture and lots half laid out. As yet people had 
had little time to beautify their grounds. Miss 
Bryan’s brother had built a house of the high-art 
Queen-Anne pattern, with modern improvements. 
He was a power in Boom City in that he speculated 
profitably in land, cattle, coal, and grain. His wife 
was a bustling woman who had little sympathy with 
anybody’s failures. For himself, he yielded to the 
inevitable, saw the advantage of living under a 
powerful and respected government, and did not see 
the sense of talking about the lost cause. He had 
a good deal of respect for the power that put down 
the biggest rebellion in history. 

Miss Bryan went along Lincoln street, her face 
toward the west. At first the sun seemed resting 
on the edge of the prairie and hiding behind the 
tall standing grasses. An opalescent light lay over 
all the stern bluffs, gentle valleys, and rolling di- 
vides. Miles across the prairie was the little town 
of Rushington, the next railroad station. In the 
daytime it was out of sight, but just then the 
refracted rays of the sun made it clear to view. A 
long freight-train was moving away from the sta- 
tion. A dense black column rose over the engine. 
From it floated rings of smoke which were turned 
to amber in the evening light. One floated and 
hung over a windmill that stood with arms out- 
stretched and motionless. High above, some cir- 
rus clouds were hanging, their lower edges gilded. 
Miss Bryan stopped to admire, and well she might. 


144 


RICHARI) ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


No patient Dutch artist ever paid such attention to 
coloring and detail as did the artist who hung that 
picture before Miss Bryan. It is so with leaf and 
pebble. Nature never hurries things. God never 
hurries, neglects, nor forgets. 

The picture faded, and left Miss Bryan’s soul 
all the more dreary. She shivered in the Nebras- 
ka wind. Our winter landscape was cold and 
cheerless to this child of the South. She did not 
analyze her feelings, and tell herself that that was 
always the way with her life and her plans. That 
was not her way. But she felt it all the same. 
Only she knew that picture would be repainted 
thousands of times; the visions of her youth 
never could come again. Life had opened fair 
before her, then had grown stormy, bitter, and 
desolate. The very type of her young life had 
been swept away. 

That night she was so hurt, so angry! She was 
a Southern lady, and a Yankee woman had insult- 
ed her. There was no one to resent it for her. Her 
brother would laugh it oif; his wife would not 
care, and they both would say sarcastic things about 
churches and sewing societies. She let herself into 
the house and went straight to her room. She put 
away her hat and cloak, and stood over the register, 
trying to warm herself, all the while clasping and un- 
clasping her pretty hands and touching pitifully a 
sapphire ring on her finger where a wedding ring 
should have been. She had placed it there one 


MOURNING OVER GLORIES GONE. 145 


awful day when they had brought her news from 
the war. Her soldier had been killed. The Bryans 
never loved but once — that was a family boast. Ah, 
she had not told the Boom City ladies all her story. 
She had never mentioned the battle of Antietam. 
She was twenty then — she was forty now. His 
cause had failed, and she was obliged to live among 
his conquerors. If his cause had triumphed, she 
could have gone about triumphantly. There was 
the hurt. It had been a useless sacrifice. 

Poor, gentle, noble Southern lady ! Hers was 
a pagan devotion. Most of our devotion is pagan. 
She could have gathered all her earthly treasures 
in one hand and flung them from her in scorn then, 
as the Roman matron Arria plunged the dagger into 
her own bosom and then gave it to her dear one, 
murmuring, It is not painful, my Psetus.’’ Yes, 
she could have done that. Instead, she lived a 
lonely life, and saw strangers come between her and 
the dearest left to her. There is nothing sublime 
or inspiring in that. 

Proud, gentle Southern woman ! For the first 
time in her life she realized that her religion was 
also the Yankee’s religion. She would not mind 
if they were all like Mrs. Wickliife and Mrs. Har- 
vey ; but she shivered when she thought of Mrs. 
Garrett. If only they knew the misery their hor- 
rid victories had brought to her, they would be 
sorry for her ; and that, she thought, was the least 
they could do. 

10 


146 mCHARI) ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 

She went down to the sitting-room and bent over 
the baby’s bed. With a gleeful coo the little head 
was lifted, the little arms outstretched. She could 
bear her life better with the tender form in her 
arms and her pure cheek against hers. The baby 
helped her in her trouble. 


CHAPTER XVIIL 


THE DRAMATIC IN REAL LIFE. 

“ To astonish a woman by turning into her lover when she 
is thinking of you merely as a lord chancellor is what a man 
naturally shrinks from ; he is anxious to create an easier tran- 
sition. 

“ To an ardent, reverential love the loved woman has always 
a kind of rank which makes a man keenly susceptible about the 
aspect of his addresses .” — George Eliot. 

rriHE effect was tremendous So said Miss 

J- Geddes when Richard Rogers joined her as 
slie came out of the post-office on her way home 
that night. He walked along by her side, and she 
continued her story : It was as good as a circus. 

I can’t help it if I do shock you — I have to laugh 
wlien I think of it.” Ayd that young lady did 
laugh one of her tinkling little laughs that was 
half giggle. Then she went on more soberly : 

Mrs. Harvey opened the door right quick, for 
the dust was flying worse than it is now. There 
sat Mrs. Garrett, looking like the pillar in the 
church and the prop in society that she is. She 
had her hands clenched and her feet crossed, of 
course. No martyr ever went to the stake more 
obstinately than she could have gone just then. 

147 


148 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


That Southern lady stood by tlie stove. How her 
eyes blazed ! Her expression made one forget the 
powder on her face. It must have been the way my 
namesake looked when she flung that stool at the 
deau\s head. Pieces of bright calico fell around 
Miss Bryan like autumn leaves around a soft maple 
‘ back East/ as Mrs. Garrett says. She clasped 
her hands and gasped, ‘Sorry you shook bauds 
with me ! I can’t think what you mean.’ And 
Mrs. Garrett answered : ‘ Miss Bryan, I will tell 
you what I mean. My boy was killed at Gettys- 
burg. I vowed then that I never would forgive 
the South.’ Miss Bryan cried, ‘ How can I ever 
forgive the North?’ The dramatic effect was im- 
mense. Mrs. Harvey just looked. Her eyes got 
bigger and blacker every minute. Poor little Mrs. 
Wickliffe was as white as death, but she looked the 
angel that she is. I suppose I added to the whole 
effect by staring at the others. That angel — Mrs. 
Wickliffe I mean — stepped between the belligerents 
and said, ‘ Ladies, we are more than Northerners 
or Southerners. We are daughters of the great 
King, princesses in our own right. Our Elder 
Brother was crucified by his enemies, and he for- 
gave them.’ Then Miss Bryan went off to the 
bedroom to put on her things. Mrs. Wickliffe 
spoke to Hope, and then went to help Mrs. Harvey 
soothe Miss Bryan. Mrs. Garrett began to nag 
Hope, as usual. Hope wriggled about a good deal, 
and Mrs. Garrett asked her if she had the St Vitus’ 


THE DRAMATIC IN REAL LIFE. 149 


daoce. Hope said, ^ No, but Mr. Dietrich gave 
papa some St. Jacobis oil.’ I tell you the whole 
effect was indescribable. I did not disgrace myself 
by laughing then. I remembered my position in 
society in general and the school in particular. But 
now that the horrors of the siege are over, I must 
laugh.” 

Miss Jennella Geddes laughed again. 

By that time these people had reached the corner 
where their ways divided. They both stopped. 
Miss Geddes wanted to hear what Deacon Rogers 
had to say on the subject. Deacon Rogers knew 
he must say something. But what could be said 
to a young woman who saw only the funny side of 
things — a young woman who saw none of the pain 
of this story — a young woman who told it on pur- 
pose to shock the deacon ? Older deacons have the 
advantage of Richard Rogers during shocking cir- 
cumstances. Circumstances just then were particu- 
larly shocking. Here was a church quarrel. It 
was beginning in just the right way to grow into a 
town quarrel. Helping it on was a young woman 
who occupied the important position of teacher in 
the village school. In school this young woman 
was perfect. Out of school she was nowhere near 
perfection. There was a sort of witchery about 
her ; she ruled the children more from a certain 
good-comradeship than from pedagogic authority, 
but rule them she did, in study and in play. Still, 
I repeat that outside Uie school-room and away 


150 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


from the school-grounds she was very imperfect. 
Experience, good advice, and good resolutions 
seemed to slip off her mind like water off the bur- 
nished plumage of a sea-fowl. 

She stood before that unhappy deacon with her 
wide-open eyes turned full upon him. Of course 
he would not dare to lecture her. He was just six 
years older than she. No; he should not forget 
that he was a young man. He did not forget it. 
From the depths of his soul he wished his black 
hair might become streaked with gray and a hun- 
dred crows’ feet might settle on his face. 

Mr. Rogers, don’t you think it was rich ?” 

“ Do you ?” 

Yes, of course. I see you are going to lecture 
me. Please begin, ^ You wicked sinner.’” 

Mr. Rogers did not smile. ^^Miss Geddes, will 
you do me a kindness ?” he asked very soberly. 

Yes, if you will promise not to preach.” 

Miss Geddes suddenly remembered Mr. Rogers’ 
position on the school board. She did not want to 
carry her fun too far. 

‘‘ Miss Geddes, will you promise me that you 
wdll not repeat this story again?” 

Oh, Mr. Rogers, it is such fun !” 

^^Is it fun that you will be willing to give an 
account of?” 

What do you mean ?” 

You know the Book says, ^ But I say unto you. 
That every idle word that men shall speak, they 


THE DRAMATIC IN REAL LIFE. 151 


shall give account thereof in the day of judg- 
ment/ You know that Mrs. Annis Garrett, as you 
are fond of calling her, is a peculiar woman. I sus- 
pect this very trouble has made her so. Her heart 
just bleeds for the boy who died at Gettysburg. 
Her hatred for the South has embittered her whole 
life. She gave her dearest for her country, and she 
feels that the coming of this Southern woman is an 
insult to her sacrifice.’^ 

She need not. There are lots of ex-Coiifederates 
in town.” 

‘^She does not know them. This woman she 
does know.” 

I don’t see how she can feel as she does.” 

I do. My father starved to death in Libby 
Prison. You tell me that Miss Bryan’s father was 
killed in battle. Perhaps she gave some one dearer 
yet. They are both ‘ queer,’ I grant you ; but they 
both gave dear ones for our country. You and I 
might grow queer if we lost some one whom we 
loved very much. Now, Miss Geddes, I ask you, 
for the sake of woman’s love and woman’s sorrow, 
to help quiet this trouble all you can.” 

It would have taken a wilder girl than Miss 
Geddes to have resisted that. 

‘‘I will, Mr. Rogers; but I did have to laugh.” 

‘^You won’t laugh about this any more,” said 
Mr. Rogers. He lifted his hat, turned, and went 
toward the lumber-yard. 

Richard Rogers had an ideal woman. He had 


152 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


felt that, somewhere in the world, there was a 
woman who, according to Milton, possessed the 
other half of his soul. She would have perfect 
sympathy with him, would understand and cotnplete 
his thought. Her presence would be an inspiration 
to him. He felt, too, that she would need him as 
he did her. It was a beautiful theory. The sober 
fact was that his ideal woman, materialized, did 
nothing of the kind. She stood composedly before 
him, and looked at him with steady eyes and no in- 
crease of color in her cheeks. She said things on 
purpose to shock him, and then laughed. It was a 
bitter experience, but Richard Rogers was not the 
first man to go through the like. Such things try 
men’s souls. All through his troubled soul this 
man felt that this was the woman for whom he had 
waited so long. He knew it even when she was 
the most witchingly thoughtless — knew it while he 
lectured her. It had been easier to pile lumber 
all day. 

They call love a passion. And so it is, for the 
word passion means suffering. The very strength 
and essence of passionate love is suffering love. 
Richard Rogers loved this girl — how much he had 
never dreamed of before. Did she care for him? 
He thought not; but supposing she did? His had 
been a serious life. Now he was anxious and sober- 
souled ; she was careless of everything save her 
school-room duties. He knew he should make her 
miserable; she would make him miserable unless 


THE DRAMATIC JN REAL LIFE. 


153 


some miracle were wrought in one nature or the 
other. He went about his daily work ; he did not 
seek her, he did not avoid her. Herein was shown 
both the strength and the weakness of his nature. 
Somebody says, ‘Ht is your shallow lover who 
can’t help making a declaration.” It is so. Men 
with large souls and high purposes can wait. Tliis 
man wanted a wife whom he could thoroughly 
respect. Most sensible men do. He did respect 
Jennella Geddes, though in certain ways she herself 
jarred rudely on the reverence he had for her. 
Jennella Geddes was not the first girl to do just 
this sort of thing. 

Miss Geddes went on toward the place she called 
home. She lived with a family who took boarders 
quite as members of the family.” This arrange- 
ment ensures to the boarder about one-half the 
comforts of the average boarding-house. Miss 
Geddes occupied the room built for a parlor. It 
had a pretty carpet on the floor, a single bedstead, 
a dressing-bureau, a very small stove, and two 
straight-backed chairs. At the windows were the 
spring-roller kind of shades which go up and down 
when the fit takes them. She bought a rocking-chair, 
had some shelves put up and placed her books 
on them. Then she arranged some cabinet })hoto- 
graphs and a few girlish treasures. It was a home- 
like, womanly room, and Jennella Geddes loved 
it as she did all pretty rooms, however simple their 
furniture. She took her meals with the family ; 


154 


mCHARI) ROGERS, CHRISTIAN, 


otlierwise she saw as little as possible of the inmates 
of the house. 

The fun was all gone out of her heart before she 
reached her room. Part- of it had been only the 
reaction from the nervous strain of the school-room. 
The other part was a sort of feeling that there was 
no legitimate fun to be had in Boom City. She 
closed the slide in the stove-door, and then sat 
down 'and tried to get warm. She had a deep 
sense of the fact that slie had been just a little un- 
womanly, and a still deeper feeling that Richard 
Rogers thought her utterly heartless. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


IF WE FORGIVE NOT. 

“He who cannot forgive others breaks the- bridge over 
which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be 
forgiven.” 


“ Hate is death ; and Love is life, 

A peace, a splendor from above ; 

And Hate, a never ending strife ; 

Love is the Holy Ghost within ; 

Hate, the unpardonable sin. 

Who preaches otherwise than this, 

Betrays his Master with a kiss.” 

T KNOW wliat you want to say ; but doiiT 
say it. It never was so hard for you to give 
him up as it is for me — it isn’t for men, anyw^ay. It 
gave me such a turn when I found she was from 
the South ! I haint got over it yet. Seems like I 
never shall. And there I shook hands with her 
as pleasant like, and tipped over the quilt-frames 
to do it. I always said I never should forgive 
them Southerners, never — nor look at ’em no more 
than as though they was yellow dogs. No, not so 
much, for no yellow dog ever injured me, and them 
Southerners has.” 

Mrs. Garrett sat behind the teacups, nervously 

155 


156 


lilCHAED ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


clasping and unclasping her hands. She had not 
touched the food that her husband had placed upon 
Iier plate; she had forgotten to pour the tea. 
Moses Garrett opened his lips to speak, but sighed 
instead of speaking. 

‘‘ I know all you want to say, Moses,’’ Mrs. Gar- 
rett went on. It’s about forgiveness, and how we 
won’t be forgiven unless we forgive. I can’t help 
it. He was all we had. If I had ever had an- 
other baby, or there had been any left at home, 
maybe I would not feel so. But Sammy was all 
we had. And now I was a-gettin’ to feel at home 
in that sewing society, and I ’most forgot how you 
and all the rest of ’em belong to the church, and I 
don’t. Now she must come and spoil it all with 
her talk about the war and how her folks lost their 
slaves. They had no business to have ’em in the 
first place. For my part, I wish she had stayed in 
Georgia. She said it was at Gettysburg, too. Maybe 
he was the very man that — ” 

Mrs. Garrett rose and began walking the floor. 

‘‘I wish you did belong to the church, Anuis 
dear,” said Mr. Garrett, and then he began to eat 
his supper. 

Yes,” she replied as she kept on walking, “I 
wish I did too. But, you see, I don’t. I never 
did before — before — and now I can’t join ’em if 
I’ve got to forgive them Southerners first. There 
is no use in making believe I do when I don’t. I 
told her I was sorry I ever shook hands with her. 


IF WE FORGIVE NOT. 


157 


I wouldn’t if I had known. And it was at Gettys- 
burg, too,” slie repeated again, as if trying to realize 
all the misery of it. 

Mrs. Wickliffe likes me, she does,” Mrs. Gar- 
rett went on after a time; “but then she likes Miss 
Bryan too, for that matter. There she stood be- 
tween us — Mrs. Wickliffe, I mean — and saying, 
‘ Ladies, we are more than Northerners or Soutli- 
erners. We are daughters of the great King, 
princesses in our own right. Our Elder Brother 
was crucified by his enemies, and he forgave them.’ 
I don’t feel that way.” 

Moses Garrett ate his supper in silence. There 
was no use in talking, and he knew it. “He who 
tempers the wind to the shorn lamb accommodates 
the yoke of matrimony to the submissive neck,” 
says an author who never tried it. Nevertheless, 
some people felt sorry for Annis Garrett’s husband. 
There were not lacking people to say that Annis 
could not be happy unless she had some trouble on 
her mind. She continued her walk back and forth 
in the little one-roomed house, all the while giving 
her husband a miserable feeling that his cherishing 
had been a failure. He certainly had not kept sor- 
row and pain from his Annis. She had grown 
very unlike the girl he had married in his young 
manhood. She had been called pretty then ; now 
she was angular of frame and harsh of feature. 
She grew more harsh and angular as the years 
went by. All her graceful, dainty ways were a 


158 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


})art of the price paid for the victory of Gettysburg 
on the day when they found her with the Phila- 
delphia Fubllo Ledger in her hands and her eyes 
fixed on the words Terrible losses in the Union 
Army. The First Corps almost annihilated.^^ 

There is no God/’ she cried, or he would not 
kill iny boy. Why was not some other woman’s 
son killed instead ?” 

She forgot that there was sorrow in thousands of 
other homes. 

Then she had a long fever. After that there 
came months of melancholy. At first her neigh- 
bors pitied her, but she soon wore out their sympa- 
thy, she was so unreasonable, so bitter, and so 
sharp-spoken ; and others had their sorrows too. 
People called on the Garretts because Moses some- 
times asked them to. They felt sorry for him. 
He had taken fresh courage at the beginning of his 
Western life. His wife seemed so much like her 
old self, he wished they had moved years before. 
He would, had he known how much it would 
brighten Annis’s life. 

Moses Garrett walked humbly before the Lord 
and still more humbly before his wife. Her harsh- 
ness appalled him. The trouble which hardened 
her heart softened his and developed the tenderness 
within him. His symj)athies reached out and took 
in all the world. He did many kind deeds which 
no one praised ; his courage and patience strength- 
ened others; his prayers lifted them up toward 


IF WE FORGIVE NOT. 


159 


God. He prayed more fervently when Aunis was 
not by — explain it who can. 

He was short and square of stature, with shoul- 
ders slightly bent; his coat-collar fitted badly; his 
features were strong — only love could call them 
beautiful, and love never did. There was a look 
of care on his homely face. I would give that 
word its Scotch meaning ; with them it is a dear, 
kindly, home-\y word. His gray beard and gray 
liair (combed in front of his ears, after the fashion 
of forty years ago, to please Ann is), together with 
the paleness of his face, gave him an iron-gray 
appearance. His hair was soft and fine ; it scarcely 
covered his head in spots, though he was not bald. 
His beard was thin, the hairs standing far apart 
like cottonwoods in a young grove upon the prai- 
ries. His eyes were black, showing energy and 
fire which contradicted all his other personal char- 
acteristics. 

Mr. Garrett put away the supper things, placing 
some food in the oven to keep warm for his wife 
in case she should want it. She was sitting in 
front of the stove, resting her elbows upon her 
knees, her head upon her hands. She paid no 
attention to her husbaiKfs movements. He would 
have caressed her and spoken loving words, but she 
repelled him ; she wanted to be alone. He put on 
his coat and hat and went out. 

He would take his trouble to the minister. He 
knew his wife was beginning what might prove to 


160 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


be a town quarrel ; it certainly would be a church 
quarrel unless the Southern lady went away. 
Moses Garrett felt sorry for her, but he did not say 
so to Annis. Would the minister and his wife be 
patient with his Annis? His loyal soul forbade 
his asking it of them. If only they had known 
her before the boy died ! Could they, would they 
understand? At all events he would call and talk 
with them. 

The Rev. Calvin AYickliffe lived in the two 
rooms over the grocery on the south side of the 
public square. A nervous flight of steep stairs on 
the outside of the building led to the rooms. 
There was no roof over them. When it snowed 
the steps were slippery. Mr. Garrett climbed those 
stairs and knocked at the door. Mrs. Wickliffe 
opened it. She carried a lamp in her hand. The 
light seemed to form a sort of halo around her 
sweet face and fair hair. Mr. Garrett remembered 
what she had said about being a daughter of tlie 
great King, and felt awkward in her presence. He 
hardly knew how he got into the room. Mrs. 
Wickliffe was talking pleasantly, and Hope came 
and leaned on his knees and showed him a picture 
card. The door was open into the room that was 
used as family bedroom and study combined. Mr. 
Wickliffe was bending over a dry-goods box that 
served as study table. He came out to speak to 
Mr. Garrett. Supper was ready, and Mrs. Wick- 
liffe asked INIr. Garrett to drink a cup of tea with 


IF WE FORGIVE NOT. 


161 


them. He thought it would seem social, and 
accepted it. There was bread and some dried 
peach-sauce on the table, also a glass of milk for 
Hope. He noticed that neither the father nor 
the mother used milk iu their tea. 

The Rev. Calvin WicklifPe had spent ten of the 
best years of his youth and early manhood and 
three thousand dollars in preparing for the minis- 
try. For ten years he had preached on a salary of 
five hundred dollars a year, part of the time not 
getting even that. Through summer and winter, 
health and sickness, joy and sorrow, he had given 
himself — his best — to his work. His education, 
energy, business ability, and power of application 
would have brought him money and social standing 
in any other business. In this he was able to give 
his family about the same comforts that the man 
who draws your coal can give his. Do you call 
this lacking in manly enterprise? Get acquainted 
with him and see. 

For his wife’s sake he would have liked to be 
better off. She had been delicately reared. To see 
her enduring so much of self-denial was torture to 
him ; for himself he did not mind poverty. 

That evening they had a long talk about the 
town, the church, the Sunday-school, and the young 
Swede who had died in the afternoon. This gave 
Mr. Garrett a chance to speak of his wife. 

/‘It’s hard, it’s hard,” he said; “ I feel for his 
folks, I do. We lost our only boy. I expected 
11 


162 


BICHARB ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


to lean on Sammy when I got old ; but he got 
there first. He was a soldier, you know — it was 
at Gettysburg. We ain’t what we was before that. 
Annis ain’t, poor soul. Seems like she can’t get 
over it. Yes, Sammy would have been most forty 
now ; but it ’pears like mothers don’t forget their 
babies. Seems like one can’t get over havin’ tlie 
children die. There is so much to give up when 
they put our children away out of our sight. Why, 
only this morning I was thinking how he would 
have been some such a man as you are, Mr. Wick- 
liffe. As boys you must have favored each other. 
Maybe he would have been a minister, for he took 
to books and was such a good boy. He would 
have been married long ago, and there would have 
been some little boys and girls to climb on my knee 
and call me ‘grandpa.’ You see, there is so much 
to give up when the boy dies, Annis is different, 
and I am different.” 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Wickliffe ; “ we understand ; we 
have given two babies back- to God.” 

“It is a beautiful thought,” said Mrs. Wickliffe, 
“ that there are children up in heaven who belong to 
us — our very own, you know. God, gives them a 
‘new name,’ but I don’t think they forget the old. 
Perhaps the angels call them by it sometimes. For 
twenty years they have been talking to Sammy 
Garrett, and that has brought them down near to 
you. I think God lets him watch over you, and 
when the prophets and apostles meet him they in- 


IF WE FORGIVE NOT. 


163 


quire after you and ask how far you are on your 
journey honie/^ 

I never thought of that before/’ Mr. Garrett 
replied slowly, but I have thought that I never 
would have known how to feel sorry for other folks 
if my Sammy had lived. Seems as if I did not 
know how much love there was in the world until 
lie was born. And I did not know how much sor- ' 
row there was until he died.” 


CHAPTER XX. 


A 3I0I)FIiN HERO. 


*‘He who with manliest spirit joins 
The heart of gentlest human mould, 

With burning light and girded loins, 

To guide the flock or watch the fold ; 

True to all truth the world denies, 

Not tongue-tied for its gilded sin ; 

Not always right in all men’s eyes, 

But faithful to the light within. 

Who asks no need of earthly f ime, 

Who knows no earthly master’s call. 

Who hopes for man through guilt and shame. 

Still answering, ‘ God is over all.’ ” 

OR myself I do not mind, Calvin,’’ said Mrs. 



J- Wickliife, ‘^but I would like to give Hope 
more advantages.” 

‘‘Mamma, I rather have milk on my oat-meal,” 
said the child, looking up from her breakfast. 

“You shall, dear, the very next time papa gets 
some pennies.” 

“ Hope is not old enough for what you call ad- 
vantages,” Mr. Wicklitfe observed. “ She is right ; 
she needs milk more. She is enjoying life as she 
goes along, as a kitten should.” 


A MODERN HERO. 


165 


I am suspecting the milk every day/’ said 
Hope gravely. spoke to the Lord about it 
most two weeks ago. Miss Geddes wrote it down 
for me ; but perhaps I have got to wait for the cows 
to grow up 'before I can have it. I spoke about 
papa’s clothes, too.” 

Mr. and Mrs. AVickliffe exchanged glances. 
They talked in glances a good deal when Hope was 
by. 

“ Did you tell Miss Geddes that you were pray- 
ing for milk ?” the mother questioned. 

I just asked her to })ut down what day it was, 
and she wrote ^ Hope’ on her calendar on the thir- 
teenth day of January.” 

I am not losing faith, dear, neither am I repin- 
ing. I was trying to think how I can help you to 
mend matters. I want to be a help to you, Calvin.” 

Want to be a help to me?’ You know you 
are a help to me every hour.” Mr. Wicklilfe 
looked across tlie table at his wife. '' When I was 
a boy I used to read of the Knights of St. John. 
It seemed to me that they were the grandest men 
that ever lived. I mourned that I had lived too 
late. The days of knighthood were over. After 
a while I found that I had one chance left. Home- 
mission work offered a grander field than theirs. 
And, sweetheart, since you have pieced out my im- 
])erfect existence I have known that the heights of 
human life are not for men to walk. It is only 
women with hearts and souls like yours who reach 


166 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


them. There you live, an inspiration to the re- 
mainder of humanity 

A bright glow came into Mrs. Wicklitfe’s cheeks 
at the words. Oh, Calvin, you are very young 
this morning/’ she laughed. 

Hope, intent on her oat-meal, had carried on 
another train of thought. Mamma,” she said 
suddenly, ‘‘did God make everything?” 

“ Yes, dear.” 

“ Can he make anything he wants to ?” 

“ Yes, dear.” 

“Can he make a string with only one end to it?” 

There came a heavy knock on the door. The 
comer proved to be Lon Dietrich. He stej^ped 
down a few steps and motioned Mr. AVickliffe to 
come out and close the door. 

“Did you mean your talk about work ’tother 
day?” he asked. “You won’t take no offence?” 

“Of course I meant it.” Then Mr. Wickliffe 
hastened to add : “ The church is doing splen- 

didly ; but times are hard, and I would like to earn 
some money, so as not to be obliged to get in debt.” 

“And you want a job?” 

“ Yes ; have yon one for me ?” 

“You won’t take no offence?” and Lon hesitated 
a little. “I am goin’ to build some stables for Mr. 
Bryan ; haint got no other job goin,’ but if you 
want to help on that, carpenters is gettin’ three 
dollars a day — now, and you can have the work.” 

“I’ll be on hand as soon as I finish my breakfast.” 


A MODERJV HERO. 


167 


^‘Yoii can make out three-quarters of a day 
easy Lon waited a little. 

‘‘You see, I am very late this morning,’’ Mr. 
AVickliffe said. “ It was quite late before I got 
home last night.” 

“Yes; I allowed it would be when I see you 
start. And says I to Mrs. Dietrich, ‘ That chap 
has nerve, he has. Yes, he has. He oiighter hev 
a salary, and a boss and wagon to do his goin’ 
around in.” Lon took off his cap in token of his 
appreciation of the minister’s nerve, and then went 
down the stairs. 

“You shall have milk on your oatmeal to-morrow 
morning, Pussie,” said Mr. Wickliffe, in a bright, 
cheerful way, as he stopped to pinch Hope’s cheek 
as he passed her chair. 

“ What is it?” Mrs. Wickliffe asked. 

“ The Lord’s cows have growed up,” Hope ob- 
served. 

Before he could reply there was a light step on 
the stairs and a quick knock at the door. Miss 
Geddes was let into the room. 

“I did not mean to intrude,” she said as she 
stood there all glowing with healthy color. “ I am 
earlier than I thought.” 

“It is because we are late,” said Mr. Wickliffe. 
“ I went to Riishington to hold a meeting last night. 
I was delayed in starting back, and did not reach 
home until two o’clock this morning. My wife let 
me sleep over-time this morning.” 


168 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


It is nine miles to E-ushington,” said Miss 
Geddes; ^‘you must have had a long, cold ride.’’ 

‘ Eide,’ ” echoed Mrs. Wickliffe ; he walked 
every step of both ways.” 

Walked ! why, I thought that Dr. Harvey 
always drove him over?” 

He does when he can. Last night he was 
called another way.” 

You need a horse of your own.” 

‘‘I did have one, but he died of horse distemper 
last year, about the time so many other men lost 
their horses.” 

Missionaries can’t afford horses for themselves 
nor milk for their little girls,” said Hope, who, 
sure of milk for her next breakfast, spoke for her 
fellow-sufferers. 

Don’t, dear,” said her mother. 

‘‘ If I was a Young Men’s Christian Sewing So- 
ciety I would buy horses for lots of ministers,” 
Hope went on, trying to change the subject. 

So would I and Miss Geddes laughed. 
^‘What would you do about the milk?” 

Thus questioned, Hope felt at liberty to go on : 

I would buy consecrated milk, and send it to 
home missionaries.” 

‘^Concentrated milk, dear,” her mother cor- 
rected. 

“ Papa said it was consecrated milk.” 

“ When did I say so?” 

“You said ‘consecrated’ meant what we were 


A MODERN HERO. 


169 


going to use for God ; that’s what I would do with 
the milk.” 

“ I believe she does mean consecrated milk/’ said 
Miss Geddes. 

The family had risen from the table, and Mr. 
Wickliffe took up the Bible. Miss Geddes un- 
fastened her cloak and stayed to prayers. Slie 
wondered if Mr. Wicklitfe would make a cheerful 
prayer tliat morning. She glanced around the little 
room that showed the signs of self-sacrifice so 
plainly. What a background for those people, 
with their gentle ways, cultured voices, and fine 
faces ! It was a study for an artist. Perhaps some 
day we shall a])preciate such people, and erect 
statues in their honor. 

Now, ladies, if you will excuse me, I will go 
to work.” Prayers were over, and Mr. Wickliffe 
prepared to go out. 

What do you mean ?” his wife asked in some 
surprise. 

I mean that I have a job. I am going to help 
Lou Dietrich build some stables for Mr. Bryan.” 

Why, Mr. Wickliffe !” Miss Geddes exclaimed. 

What makes you do that?” 

Mrs. Wickliffe knew why, but she said nothing. 

Because, Miss Geddes, my family and I have 
the habit of eating. I know it is very expensive; 
still, we like to keep it up. Hope, you see, is par- 
ticularly anxious about it. Then landlords have a 
fashion of wanting their rent. I can’t blame them 


170 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN, 


for that, but it takes money ; therefore the job. 
My Blessing shall, have milk on her oatmeal to- 
morrow morning,’^ he added as he stooped to kiss 
the child good-by. 

“ Please don’t do it, Mr. Wicklitfe,” Miss Geddes 
cried in amazement. 

This was her first observation of home mission- 
ary trials. She knew, of course, that there were 
such things, and had a vague sort of an interest in 
them, such as one feels toward the man in the 
moon. But now these things afiected her pastor. 
Plow would you like to see the Bev. Dr. Eloquence 
at work on a cow-shed ? 

Please don’t do it,” Miss Geddes repeated. 
^Mf you are out of money, I have ten dollars that 
I don’t need to use right oflP. Let me lend it to 
you.” 

P'hank you. Miss Geddes, but I can’t take it. 
Don’t you see I can’t? Besides that, I am not out 
of money. IS’o one shall ever say that in all my home 
mission experience I was out of money — unless I 
lose those.” He took from his pocket two old- 
fasliioned copper pennies with holes through them. 

It’s a shame !” cried Miss Geddes. Why 
don’t the church do somethinir?” 

The church can’t. The corn crop was a fail- 
ure, and peoj)le have nothing to sell. P'here is 
almost no money in town. I never saw such a 
financial crisis. INFiss Geddes, there is no use in 
trying to make believe 1 don’t feel this. It 


.A MODERN HERO. 


171 


grinds my very soul to see my wife and cbild suf- 
fer need. But we can’t go back : we aren’t made 
that way. The devil and his angels are never off 
duty. There is. too bitter a need of Christian work- 
ers in the West for one to give up who is already 
in the field. So, like the Knights of the Bound 
'fable, I shall sally out to redress the wrongs of 
these two distressed damsels. I shall do it with 
Lon Dietrich’s hammer. My ladies are as much 
superior to the Lady Lyonors, as the idea of the 
Christian Madonna is above the Greek Venus — 
which is immeasurably.” The Rev. Calvin AYick- 
liffe went to his work.* 

The home missionary must live more plainly 
than the poorest mechanic. His church is made 
up of poor people. Perhaps their crops have 
failed : that means that they must suffer. The 
Board cannot pay him enough to enable him to 
live comfortably; he must work with his hands, 
get into debt, or starve. This state of things di- 
minishes the world’s respect for a religion whose 
followers allow their heralds to suffer for want of 
the necessaries of life. The home missionary can- 
not have the social standing that your pastor does. 
The man who deals in coal or who. buys cattle says 
sarcastic things of him. AVhen scarcely out of his 
hearing they remark, If that fellow had any sand 

* There is neitlier poetry, imagination, nor romance about 
tliis. I have seen a liome missionary remodeling stables that 
lie might earn money to buy food for his family. 


172 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


lie would rustle arouud and find a business with 
some money in it.’^ 

All honor to the brave men and women who 
thus work on. We shudder over the fate of the 
early martyrs, but every year adds to the list of 
martyrs — as truly martyrs as though they perished 
at the stake. They die of the need of a warm 
overcoat, a thick cloak, warm flannels, fresh meat, 
good bread, milk, vegetables — when rooms are cold 
because coal is fifteen dollars a ton and because the 
Board is in debt. 

All honor to the workers ; but 

What is the use in havino; home missionaries?’’ 
Some one asked me this question a few days ago. 

Read carefully and justly the history of the set- 
tlement of this country. Read of the part that 
ministers of the gospel took in the nation’s early 
struggles. Read of their work during the Revolu- 
tion. Remember the ministers’ work during the 
last war,— preaching the rights of human souls ; 
going to the front with the boys or working for 
them at homej comforti’.ig you — at least praying 
with you after news from the battle whose fancy 
painted pictures mingled with your dreams because 
he was killed there. 

Said President Lincoln, Thanks be unto God, 
who in our national trials gives us the churches.” 
^^God is my witness that it is my constant anxiety 
and prayer that both myself and this nation shall 
be on the Lord’s side.” 


A MODERN HERO. 


173 


Dare you maiiitaiu that home missionaries are 
not political necessities? 

Was the man of whom I was telling you a 
hero ? 

Get acquainted with him and see. 

What is a hero? 

What is a manly man ? 

What is a great man ? 

The highest pattern was He who dwelt in the 
village of Nazareth. Listen to his words : 

Whosoever will be great among you shall be 
your minister. 

‘^And whosoever of you will be chiefest, shall 
be servant of all.’’ 

A popular English author has been searching 
the world for the manliest among men. He found 
him — where? At Harper’s Ferry, in 1859. The 
man who, as he went to a shameful grand death, 
stoops to kiss the child of a forlorn race.” 

Carlyle says, Hero-worship endures for ever 
while man endures. Worship of a hero is trans- 
cendent admiration for a great man. I say great 
men are still admirable; I say there is, at bottom, 
nothing else admirable. No nobler feeling than 
this admiration for one higher than himself dwells 
in the breast of man. It is the eternal corner-stone, 
from which they can begin to build themselves up 
again. That man, in some sense or other, worships 
heroes; that we all of us reverence, and must ever 
reverence, great men, — this to me is the living rock 


174 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


amid all rusliing-dowD whatsoever — the one fixed 
point in modern revolutionary history, otherwise as 
if bottomless and shoreless/’ 

In Rome devotion to one’s country was counted 
the hio:hest virtue. Where in all the world can 
you find more faithful, more patient devotion to 
country and to God than among our home mission- 
aries? Of one of them Dr. Phelps has said, ‘‘He 
is a hero beyond all earthly fame. He might have 
been the man of whom the preacher said, ‘ One 
man among a thousand have I found.” 

Some day we shall appreciate our heroes, and, as 
Abraham Lincoln said of others of our heroes, 
“The world will little note, nor long remember, 
what we say here ; but it can never forget what 
they did here.” 

Carlyle says that all great men are made of the 
same stuff. It is their environments which deter- 
mine whether they be poets or kings. Had he been 
an American, in the latter half of the nineteenth 
century, he might as truly have said, “ It is the 
great man’s environments which determine wliether 
he be a Union general or a home missionary.” 

Some day we shall recognize our heroes. 


CHAPTER XXL 


A 3WDERN MADONNA. 

“ A being breathing thonghtfiil breath, 

A traveler between life and death ; 

The reason firm, the temperate will, 
Endurance, forethought, strength, and skill ; 
A perfect woman, nobly planned 
To warn, to comfort, and command ; 

And yet a spirit still, and bright 
With something of an angel light.’' 



ICHARD ROGERS saw Miss Geddes but 


-LL once during the next week. They said 
Good-evening’^ as usual — nothing more. He 
went straiglit to his office, and made himself miser- 
able over the idea that she was offended. In his 
blundering way he had said things which had better 
liave been left unsaid. He had decided that she 
meant only to repeat the story to him and put it 
in the least annoying way. She had such a blessed 
way of seeing the funny side of things, and was 
always so bright and cheery, he told himself. In 
the depths of his heart he did not want her to grow 
sober and careworn. He wished that she knew he 
did not. Well, he had insulted her by doubting 
and lecturing her. Very likely she did not care 
any more what he thought. 


175 


176 


BTCHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN, 


Miss Geddes said not a word of the trouble. Pub- 
lic opinion classed her as a peacemaker along with 
Mrs. Wickliife and the doctor’s wife. People said 
it was not policy for the teacher to take sides in 
such a matter. Some of the townspeople were be- 
coming spirited partisans, for the story of the trou- 
ble between Mrs. Garrett and Miss Bryan grew 
daily. Some who had no interest in the chui'ch 
enjoyed the scandal. Others who might have be- 
come interested drew off, saying they did not wish 
to get themselves into trouble. They said the Aid 
Society was an awful place for quarreling and gos- 
sip. Everywhere the story went Mrs. Wickliffe’s 
part was told with more than usual fidelity to truth. 

Months afterward, her part of the story was re- 
peated by itself; even then all Boom City liked her 
the better for those words. They all felt that in 
some way Mrs. Wickliffe belonged to them. 

As for herself. Miss Geddes was deep in the val- 
ley of humiliation. She saw it all, and more than 
all. Her conduct seemed to her to be worse than 
it was. If she had not committed the unpardon- 
able sin, Richard Rogers had lectured her, and that 
was social disapproval raised to the fourth power. 
You observe that she thought more highly of his 
o})inion than it merited. She had plenty of time 
to think over her sins, for, by reason of some hitch 
in the workings of the traditional law of supply and 
demand, the town was out of coal and the school 
was closed. The children huddled close around the 


A MOBEBN MADONiYA. 


177 


one fire 'kept in their homes. Miss Geddes looked 
at her own coal-box, watched every train, and 
hoped that relief would come soon. It must come. 
She took long walks, looking off on the far prairies 
that still kept their first fascination for her. There 
had been few autumn fires and little snow that 
year. The prairies retained the mellow tints and 
lights of the old etchings that she loved. They 
borrowed an extra sadness from the condemned 
feeling in her heart and the knowledge of the suf- 
fering near her. Natures like hers have little 
power to resist melancholy when it does attack 
them. 

All day long a disagreeable south-east wind had 
been blowing; sometimes it caught up wisps of 
hay or straw and flung them about the streets; 
sometimes it tossed the black prairie-dust high in 
the air or flung blinding clouds of it in your face. 
Miss Geddes was miserable: she was tired of sew- 
ing, and her books seemed tame. Her landlady 
was a commonplace gossip. Individually her fel- 
low-boarders were either conceited or ignorant; 
collectively they were intolerable. After supper 
she remembered that Mr. Wickliffe was to preach in 
Rushington that evening, and that Mrs. Wickliffe 
would be alone with Hope. She would go and 
read to them. She put on her hood and cloak, 
took Ben Hur in her hand, then, stepping to the 
dining-room door, said that she was going to stay 
with Mrs. Wickliffe. She opened the outside door. 

12 


178 


RICHAllD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


The air was full of fine, rain-like mist. She turned 
back for her waterproof, put it on, and went out. 

Hope opened the door for her and cried, Oh, 
Miss Geddes ! I am so glad 

“And I am so glad said Mrs. Wickliffe, com- 
ing forward and taking Miss Geddes’ waterproof. 
‘‘ I expected to spend a lonely evening after Hope 
goes to bed. It was very kind of you to come. Sit 
closer to the fire. How damp the air is !” 

‘‘ The kindness, as you call it, is just pure selfish- 
ness. I was lonesome and very nearly homesick. 
Ben Hur was my birthday gift from mamma. I 
could not enjoy the book alone, so I brought it over 
to read it to you.” 

“That is a double kindness. I have wanted 
very much to read the book. We have been rash 
enough to wish we might send for it;” and Mrs. 
Wickliffe opened the draught in the stove a very 
little. “Get warm and rested, dear, before you 
begin to read. This wind takes one’s breath 
away.” 

“ Mrs. Wickliffe, don’t you think the evenings 
on which your husband has to go to Rushington 
are the most unpleasant ones we have?” Miss 
Geddes asked. 

“ I had not thought of it in that way,” was Mrs. 
Wickliffe’s answer. “Perhaps we think more 
about them. Did you notice how near the stars 
seemed last nicjht?” 

“Yes; I thought of what Joaquin Miller said. 


A JIOBEJiN MADONNA. 


179 


It was something like this : ^ The stars came out 
and peeped through the key-hole of heaven to see 
what the United States were doing under those vast 
free skies.’ ” 

“ He says a bright thing now and then, does he 
not? — Hope, dear, can’t you bring a foot-rest for 
Miss Geddes?” 

Hope brought a home-made foot-rest; most of 
their furniture was of home construction. The 
child sat down beside her teacher and laid her head 
upon her lap. Mrs. Wickliffe brought out her 
sewing — plain, homely sewing; she was mending 
her husband’s underclothes. 

Watching her face. Miss Geddes forgot about her 
book, there was something so sweetly charming in 
the manner of this missionary’s wife. Miss Geddes 
worshiped her in girlish fashion. Eichard Eogers 
would never think she failed in womanliness. Yet 
the girl would have shrunk away from the path 
through which Mrs. Wickliffe reached such heights 
of womanhood. 

On her wedding-day, Mrs. Wickliffe had been 
called thoughtless — too thoughtless for a minister’s 
wife. People said it was not in her nature to be 
anything but a careless girl. But her nature had 
grown. Florists cramp the roots of some plants 
to force them to free blooming. That was the way 
in which her soul had blossomed. Her life had few 
roots, and those held lightly. She lived from hand 
to mouth, iu rented houses. Her husband and her- 


180 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


self knew wliat it was to be hungry. Sending her 
husband off on preaching tours, and staying alone 
until he came back ; peering for him in storms 
thicker than sea fog; trying to catch a glimpse of 
him through summer grasses; wrapping the baby 
in a bed-quilt because the coal was low ; — are you 
strong enough to live such a life for an Idea? — the 
Idea of that man on Calvary eighteen centuries 
ago? The Germans say that every nation, every 
age, every civilization, has its idea — its chief feat- 
ures. This is the world’s Idea — the grandest there 
has ever been. 

Hope was the only child left in this home. There 
had been two others, but they went back to God. 
One was born the spring after grasshopper year. 
They lived on hulled corn, lard, and molasses part 
of the time that winter. The doctor said that was 
why there would be no son to care for them in their 
old age. 

Think of that when your church takes up the 
collection for home missions next time. 

Still, these people stayed by the work. It was 
by staying that Mrs. Wickliffe became so sw(:‘et, 
so gentle, so beautiful, notwithstanding the hollows 
in her temples and the watching look in her eyes — 
like a fisherman’s wife. It was by staying that 
the Rev. Calvin Wickliffe developed into a hero. 
All the while their love for each other had grown, 
making their lives happy. Some one has said that 
no real trouble can come to those who are happily 


A MODEBN MADONNA. 


181 


married. There are no burdens that pure, recip- 
rocated love will not lighten and brighten. 

Miss Geddes took up her book and read the 
thrilling, picturesque story of the strange three and 
their meeting in the desert. Then she continued : 

^ Suddenly in the air before them, not farther 
up than a low hill-top, flared a lambent flame ; as 
they looked at it the apparition contracted into a focus 
of dazzling lustre. Their hearts beat fast, their 
souls thrilled, and they shouted, as with one voice, 
The star ! the star ! God is with us I’” ” 

She closed the book at those words, and sat look- 
ing thoughtfully at the front cover. 

Mrs. Wickliffe undressed Hope, tucked her into 
bed, then came back to the fire and put out her 
hand for the book. 

Let me read a little while,’^ she said. 

So they read on, each taking turns in reading 
until ihe long winter evening was spent. Miss 
Geddes’ voice trembled over these words : 

^ When the draught was finished the hand that 
had been resting upon the sufferer’s shoulder was 
placed upon his head, and stayed there in the 
dusty locks time enough to say a blessing; the 
stranger then returned the pitcher to its place on 
the stone, and, taking his axe again, went back to 
Kabbi Joseph. All eyes went with him, the 
decurion’s as well as those of the villagers. . . . 
And so, for the first time, Judah and the son of 
Mary met and parted.’ ” 


182 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


I must go home now ; it^s after ten o’clock/^ 
said the reader as she looked at her watch. 

“I am afraid that you will have a hard walk; 
it is well that it is not far/’ said Mrs. Wickliffe. 

How the wind does blow ! I was so interested 
in the story that I forgot the weather.” 

^‘The wind has changed/’ Mrs. Wickliffe ob- 
served. “ It is from the north-west now. I am 
afraid there will be a blizzard.” 

She stepped to the door and opened it. It 
struck against her harshly, as if rudely pushed 
from without. Clouds of powdery snow came 
into the room. 

You must not try to go home. It’s a blizzard 
of the worst kind. Oh, can they have started?” 

Miss Geddes looked at her watch again : It is 
half-past ten. I am afraid that they have. Who 
went with Mr. Wickliffe?” 

‘^Richard Rogers. They went over on the 
freight-train that goes through here about six 
o’clock. They expected to walk back, thinking it 
would clear away and that there would be star- 
light.” 

Miss Geddes’ face grew very white. She sat so 
still she scarcely seemed to breathe. She had read 
of blizzards and listened to stories of horrible suf- 
fering in them. And Richard Rogers might be 
out in this! 

The grocery-man had closed his store and gone 
home. There was no sound save the steady push- 


A J/ADONyA. 


183 


ing of the wind and the click of the sleet against 
the glass. 

We can hope tliat something has detained them. 
It is often later than this when he starts/’ said 
Mrs. Wickliffe as she began putting more coal on 
the fire. There is coal enough to last to-night, 
and we must be ready to let them in instantly if 
they do come.” 


CHAPTER XXII. 


LOVING, SUFFERING, SOUL-ENDOWED 
WOMANS 

“ She had the gift, not always a happy one, of loving — a 
strength of devotion that always has for its companion-trait a 
gift of endurance, of martyrdom if necessary. She would give 
all, dare all, endure all for those she loved. You could see it 
in her face before you had been with her long enough to see it 
in her life.” 

T he fire had been tended, and Mrs. Wickliffe 
took np her Bible. We will have prayers 
now,’’ she said. We have a strong, helpful Friend 
always with us.” 

She read the Ninety-first Psalm ; then, simply 
and trustfully, she committed themselves and all 
dear to them to the God of storms. 

Miss Geddes had read that psalm, and had often 
heard it read, but she never had applied it to any 
one in particular before that night. It came to her 
then as something new — something strong and 
jhelpful — a protection to one she loved. 

Afterward Mrs. Wickliffe took up Ben Hur, say- 
ing that she would read awhile, as it would make 
the night shorter. They had no thought of sleep, 
and, as Mrs. Wickliffe said, reading made the time 
184 


M LOVING, SUFFERING WOMAN: 


185 


seem shorter. The oiglit wore ou, the frail frame 
building trembling in the storm. A piece of tin 
which had been nailed about the chimney at the 
roof came lose in the middle and made fiendishly 
shrill wind-music. Mrs. Wickliffe went in and 
looked at Hope, listened to her breathing, kissed 
her softly, covered her more warmly, and then 
came back with a bed-quilt in her hands. She 
warmed it, drew her chair nearer to Miss Geddes, 
and wrapped the quilt around them both. They 
sat silent for a time with clasped hands. 

Snow sifted in around the windows and through 
every crack, the house was so poorly built. The 
door blew in. After awhile they got it shut again 
and hung a blanket before it. Fuel vanishes with 
awful rapidity during these storms. The coal was 
low. They had a basket of ears of corn that a 
farmer had brought them for kindlings. They 
burned those that night while they watched and 
prayed. Morning came. There was little light, 
but the snow grew white. Toward night the storm 
died away for a little while. Miss Geddes put on 
her cloak and hood, saying that she was going home 
for a short time. 

‘‘The storm is not over yet,” said Mrs. Wickliffe. 
“ Look at that threatening bank of gloom in the 
nortli-west.” 

“ I am sure I shall be back before the storm 
breaks again,” Miss Geddes replied. “There is a 
wire fence running from the back of the grocery 


186 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


almost to our house. I cau cliug to that if it blows 
up agaiu before I get here/’ 

The storm was coming again when she started 
back carrying a hod of coal. Snow filled her eyes; 
the fence was her only guide. The wind threw her 
sharply against the wires, but she saved her pre- 
cious coal. The storm lulled and she started on 
again, and, reaching the stairs, toiled up them and 
was let in. Hardly had the door closed upon her 
when a fifty-mile gale came raging over the prairie. 
The house seemed going to pieces. A shower of 
bricks from the chimney came crashing on the roof. 
The loose tin shrieked like a demon. Hope cried 
in terror. No one came to them — no one could come. 

They lived through another night, hoping, pray- 
ing, reading. No other story could have helped 
and comforted them as Ben Hur did then. It was 
because the Helper and Comforter of the world 
moved in the story. 

About ten o’clock the next day the sky cleared. 
Miss Geddes went home for more coal. One of 
the boarders carried it up for her while she got 
some steak and other provisions. 

“ We must have a good dinner ready when Mr. 
Wicklitfe comes,” she said. 

An hour later the blizzard returned with a roar, 
a shriek, and a bellow. Sudden darkness fell upon 
them. It beggared description,” the papers said. 
That sentence will suffice, for only those who have 
passed through such horrors can understand them. 


LOVING, SUFFERING WOMAN: 


187 


Mrs. WickliiFe’s heart almost failed her; she felt 
that her husband had started to come home diirino: 
that deceitful quiet time when the storm seemed 
over. If so, only God’s goodness could save him. 
Hope went to sleep early that night, so the need of 
telling stories was over. ‘ Mrs. Wickliffe was very 
quiet after that, and very pale too. Miss Geddes 
kissed her as she drew the shawl closer about her. 
They said very little — there was so little to say. 
At nine o’clock there was a sound of steps on the 
stairs. Mrs. Wickliffe sprang to the door; Miss 
Geddes sat still. 

I reckoned you might be out' of coal by this 
time,” said Lon Dietrich as he set a hod of coal 
down on the floor and brushed the snow out of his 
eyes, ^^so I brought you some, being as I heard 
the preacher haiut got home. He’s got sense, he 
has. He k no wed better than to start out in the 
face of a blizzard like this, and any fool could see 
the storm wa’n’t over. Them two cha])s ’ll stay 
under cover until the storm is over, an’ then come 
limpin’ around an’ tell how they suffered. They 
won’t give one another away, an’ they’ll have bliz- 
zard suffering enough to last ’em the rest o’ their 
natural lives. You see, they’ll do the sufferin’ 
while the other boys play poker. I’ve been there 
myself. Maybe they’ll take a hand themselves, 
for the sake of old times when they wasn’t pious. 
They haint no chickens, our minister and deacon 
haint. Don’t you be worrying about them. They 


188 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


have sense, and they knowed we’d take care of 
their woinen-folks.” 

Lon began to reel up the clothes-line which was 
tied around his waist to guide him back to his 
starting-place. 

I am coming back with another load o’ coal,” 
he went on, without giving any one else a chance to 
speak, ’cause when we git a chance to steal honest 
like, we better make a good haul.” 

Steal ! Mr. Dietrich, did you steal that coal ?” 
cried Mrs. Wickliffe. 

Steal it? Of course I did. How else should 
I get it in this town? That’s the county’s coal; 
judicial stuff that is. Stole it out of the court-house 
cellar. Had mighty good company when I was 
gettin’ of it, too — taxpayers all of us. The boys 
ai’e there waitin’ for me. Bet you a boy with a 
black hat on we don’t let our minister’s wife freeze, 
we don’t and Lon stuck his tongue into his 
cheek and rolled his eyes in a way that testified 
strongly to the taxpayers’ loyalty to their minister. 

course they are safe,” said Miss Geddes 
when Lon had come and gone again ; for Lon had 
brought courage as well as coal. ‘^As he says, 
they are no chickens.” 

‘‘ What about the game of poker?” Mrs. Wick- 
liffe asked with a feeble attempt at a smile. 

Fancy it.” 

Lon is good-hearterl.” 

Yes, indeed, he is.” 


'A LOVING, SUFFERING W03IAN: 


189 


''Suppose we read awhile?’' and Miss Geddcs 
took up the book. 

That chapter was a picture of the crucifixion of 
Christ. The reader’s voice often faltered over so 
much of human and divine agony : 

'"The face then plainly seen by Ben Hur, 
bruised and black with blood and dust as it was, 
lighted, nevertheless, with a sudden glow ; the eyes 
opened wide, and fixed upon some one visible to 
them alone in the far heavens; and there were 
content and relief, even triumph, in the shout the 
victim gave : 

" ' " It is finished ! It is finished !” 

"'So a hero, dying in the doing a great deed, 
celebrates his success with a last cheer. 

"'The light in the eyes went out; slowly the 
crowned head sank upon the laboring breast. Ben 
Hur thought the struggle w’as over; but the faint- 
ing soul recollected itself, so that he and those 
around him caught the other and last words, spoken 
in a low voice, as if to one listening close by : 

" ' "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” 

" ' A tremor shook the tortured body ; there was 
a scream of fiercest anguish, and the mission and 
the earthly life were over at once. The heart, with 
all its love, was broken ; for of that, O reader, the 
man died.’ ” 

Miss Geddes hid her face between her hands and 
wept. Save for her sobs there was silence in the 
room — a silence which Mrs. Wickliffe dared not 


190 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


break. She knew Jennella Geddes never w^ould be 
a thoughtless girl again. The gale grew more ter- 
rible. More bricks from the chimney rattled on 
the roof. A cloud of smoke and coal-gas filled the 
room. The howling of the storm became more 
fearful than the sound of cannon. 

And he may be out in this exclaimed the 
sobbing girl. 

Jennella Geddes did not mean the Rev. Calvin 
Wickliffe, and the loving, unselfish woman beside 
her knew it ; but she put her arms close about the 
girl and held her against her breast, speaking lov- 
ing, hopeful words while her own heart was break- 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

FAIR PLAY FOR THE PREACHER. 


“ Evolution itself admits the ‘ independent origin ’ of many 
tilings strikingly similar, even as exactly as the plated duck- 
bill of the Australian water-mole; and it is about time to find 
an originator in these many origins.” 


FIFTY-MILE gale was blowing powder-like 



YY snow through the air when the preaching ser- 
vice was over at Rushington that night. The folly 
of trying to reach Boom City during such a storm 
was apparent. There was nothing to do but go to 
the hotel and wait. So the Rev. Calvin Wickliffe 
and Richard Rogers were in the crowd of men who 
hovered around the hotel-office fire the next morn- 
ing, trying to keep warm. They gave this over at 
last, and tried not to freeze. As a whole the crowd 
took the storm good-naturedly. There were some 
individual cases of dissatisfaction set forth in strong 
language not at all modified by the fact that there 
was a preacher in the room, among the company 
of imprisoned men. Xo one seemed to know that 
there was a preacher present. 

The man in the brown ulster possessed some 
knowledcre of the lumber business and ^Marge lau- 
giiage,” as the phrenologist would say. He at- 


192 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


tracted Richard Rogers’ notice, and the two were 
soon discussing timber from the time it feels the 
first stroke of the woodman’s axe until it receives 
the last polish as a modern mantel. 

The man with the bottle was present. He usu- 
ally is in new towns on the frontier. This time 
his name was Dan Searles. He was talkative, his 
remarks being neither refined nor instructive. 
They seldom are. While Mr. Wickliffe discussed 
the latest cyclone theory with the landlord Dan 
Searles waxed indecent and generous. He would 
treat the company. Was. it fate or Providence 
which decreed that the Rev. Wickliffe should be 
the first man to whom he offered his bottle? 

No, I thank you ; I never drink,” said that 
gentleman, declining the bottle. 

Dan Searles gazed at him in stupid surprise. 
The others, thinking there might be some fun in 
store, held their peace to see what would come next. 
The temperance man did not seem frightened, neith- 
er was he shocked. The tempter seemed struggling 
to grasp an idea which had been mislaid in his 
whiskey-muddled brain. 

‘^Oh, I know you now,” he said at last. You 
are the preacher I seen working on a cow-pen up 
at Boom City.” 

“ I am a preacher, and I live in Boom City,” 
was the reply. 

And you work at something besides preaching 
when you can git a job,” Dan added ^ith a silly 


FAIR PLAY FOR THE PREACHER. 193 


laugli. He was growing uneasy under Mr. Wick- 
liffe’s steady gaze. 

You have missed your calling if you are trying 
to preach religion now-a-days/^ observed a young 
man who was supposed to be looking for land. He 
registered as Mr. J. Peterson Stringer/’ done in 
fine, lady-like characters. 

‘^Have you heard me preach?” Mr. Wickliffe 
asked, turning to the last speaker. 

haven’t heard anybody preach in five years,” 
Mr. J. Peterson Stringer replied with an air of 
superiority. 

“Then how do you know that I have missed my 
calling?” 

“According to his telling, you don’t seem able 
to make a decent living at it — and that, I suppose, 
is reason enough. Any man who can earn his salt 
in any other way is a fool for preaching an old- 
fashioned religion.” 

The company was now interested in this dialogue, 
and Dan Searles applied himself to his bottle with- 
out notice or comment. 

“My religion is about as fashionable as any you 
will find, take the country through,” Mr. Wickliffe 
replied. 

“ There haiut any very fashionable religion since 
that Genesis story was exploded.” 

“ Indeed ! When was that?” 

“ Why, ever so long ago. You had better read 
up a little before you preach again. You see that 
13 


194 BICHABD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 

Genesis story wa’n’t so — couldn’t have been so, ac- 
cording to facts.” 

‘‘What facts?” 

“Geological facts is what I mean. You see it 
couldn’t have been so.” 

“ Why not?” 

“ You haint up Avith the times.” Mr. J. Peterson 
Stringer, like some other good people, was not pre- 
pared to give a logical reason for the doubt that was 
in him. “ It couldn’t have been so. Geologists 
say it couldn’t. Ingersoll says it couldn’t.’’ 

“ Genesis is not a work on geology. The scientists 
are not devising a scheme of salvation.” 

“ ‘ In the beginning was the AVord, and the Word 
Avas with God, and the AVord Avas God,’” quoted 
Dan Searles, who evidently had been taught better 
than he practiced. 

“ Do ycai believe all that stutf about tlie Avorld’s 
being made in six days ?” 

“ I believe the Genesis story just as Moses 
Avrote it.” 

“ AVell, I don’t. It couldn’t have been so. That’s 
as sure as AA^ater runs down-hill.” 

There Avas something like an amused smile on 
Richard Rogers’ face as he glanced from Mr. J. 
Peterson Stringer to the preacher. But he held his 
peace. The Rev. Calvin AVickliffe needed none 
of his help. 

“ And I deny that the natural course of Av^ater is 
doAvn-hill,” Mr. Wicklilfe replied. 


FAIR PLAY FOR THE PREACHER. 195 


> Deny it! You can’t deny it. You’d better go 
out some day and look at the river. Water runs 
down-hill — of course it does. It’s got to run down- 
hill — it can’t help it.” 

‘‘ Let me advise you as a friend to study a little 
before you talk about scientific facts. I always dis- 
like to see a man make himself ridiculous/’ said 
Mr. Wicklitfe in a tone of deep sympathy. ^^It is 
a fact that the natural tendency of water is up-hill. 
How much water do you suppose runs up the capil- 
lary channels of the vegetable world in a year? Tons 
of water rise from every swamp every day. It is 
by reason of this fact that the natural tendency of 
water is up-hill that our prairies are not barren 
deserts. The Mississippi river runs up-hill. So 
does the Nile. The Amazon, too, flows up-hill. 
The oceans lie on an inclined plane. This little 
river appears to run down-hill ; but you will often 
find that things are not what they seem.” 

AW that has nothing to do with the Genesis 
story,” Mr. J. Peterson Stringer objected. 

^^I am not sure but it has. You have said 
your say about the Genesis story; now are you 
willing to hear mine?” 

^^Of course. I believe in fair play.” 

Modern science proves that this world is grad- 
ually cooling — that it has been cooling for un- 
counted ages. The next thing is to find out what 
condition the world was in when this cooling pro- 
cess began. Science takes a watch-spring and melts 


196 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


it. That liquid was not at the beginning, for 
science applies a compound blow-pipe and the steel 
burns with a brilliant blaze. It goes away in in- 
visible vapor. Science calls that vapor fire-mist, 
and says that was the way things* started. Closes 
says, ^The earth was without form and void.^ In 
the language in which Moses spoke, that meant 
‘confused and invisible.’^’ 

“You can’t prove nothing by Moses, for I don’t 
believe him,” broke in Mr. J. Peterson Stringer. 

Another of the snow-bound men rose at this 
point and said, “ I’ll take a hand in this game my- 
self.” 

He was about thirty years of age, tall, broad- 
shouldered, with strong features blocked out. 
From his talk it had appeared that he was equally 
well posted on cattle-raising and gambling. He 
had used a good deal of profanity and tobacco. 
He answered to the title of “ Captain.” Dan 
Searles was on his feet again and passed his bottle. 
The captain took him by the coat-collar and set 
him down hard. 

“Set there, will you? Can’t you be decent?” 
and the captain punctuated his question with the 
toe of his boot. Then, pointing his index finger at 
Mr. J. Peterson Stringer, he continued: “You 
keep right still while that parson says his piece. 
He’s a well-meanin’ man, he is. Its agin his prin- 
ciples to talk as mean as you can, and I’m goiu’ to 
do a little of it for him, after which we’ll hear 


FAIR PLAY FOR THE PREACHER. 197 

from him on the Genesis biz. It’s just as likely 
as not he knows more about this business than you 
do. He forgot more about it, ’fore you was born, 
than you ever will know. There’s some one as 
notes the sparrow’s fall, and he’ll give your boss 
infidel one straight from the shoulder some day. 
Then he’ll keep right on doin’ business at the old 
stand, and Christians will keep right on goin’ to 
heaven long after Bob Ingersoll has got to the 
place he don’t believe in.” 

’Course there is a hell,” Dan broke in ; “ if 
there wa’n’t, where would some folks go to?” 

Can’t you keep still and listen to your bet- 
ters?” and the captain again made use of the in- 
terrogative toe. I can swear as much as the next 
man, and I ain’t exactly a white lily, but I won’t 
see a gentleman rustled just because he is a gentle- 
man. It’s agin my principles to rustle a parson. 
I had a mother once, and she believed that Genesis 
story, and Genesis is goin’ to have a chance when 
I am around. I am goin’ to see that the preacher 
and his theological squire have fair play. This 
here speakin’ is under my auspices, as they say on 
handbills.” 

The captain kicked over the shoe-box on which 
he had been sitting, and motioned the preacher to 
mount it. 

^‘Now you get right up there and speak your 
piece, and sling in as much Genesis and gospel as 
you please. I’ll thump any man who objects.” 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


GEOLOGY, GENESIS, AND GOSPEL. 

“ Praise ye him, all his angels : praise ye him, all his hosts. 

“ Praise ye him, sun and moon : praise him, all ye stars of 
light. 

“ Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be 
above the heavens. 

“ Let them praise the name of the Lord : for he commanded, 
and they were created. 

“ He hath also stablished them for ever and ever : he hath 
made a decree which shall not pass. 

“ Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps : 

“Fire, and hail; snow, and vapor; stormy wind fulfilling 
his word ; 

“Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars; 

“ Beasts, and all cattle ; creeping things, and flying fowl : 

“ Kings of the earth, and all people ; princes, and all judges 
of the earth.” — Psalms. 

p ENTLEMEN,’’ said the Rev. Mr. Wickliife 

^ as he stejtped upon the shoe-box, I had no 
notion of delivering a lecture on geology to-day ; 
but, since one of yonr number has so coiirteon^Lly 
invited me to do so, I shall take great pleasure in 
addressing you.” 

Here the captain cheered vigorously, and was 
seconded by his admirers. As soon as quiet was 
restored the speaker went on, while the men took 
198 


GEOLOGY, GENESIS, AND GOSPEL. 199 


listening attitudes best in keeping with their indi- 
vidual characters and grades of intelligence. 

^‘Somebody has said/’ the speaker went on, ^‘that 
the purpose of the Holy Scriptures is to ^ teach us 
how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.’ 

When Moses wrote his story there was no such 
science as geology. Yet Moses told his story 
straig^ht out as thoug^h he knew what he was talk- 
ing about. He explained some things which no- 
body else could understand, and, because they could 
not understand, they pretended not to believe Moses. 
You have all heard of the man who said that what 
he did not know there was no use in anybody’s 
knowing. The other day Science began to learn 
how to study the world’s make-up. A few mo- 
ments ago I spoke of fire-mist. Science tells us that 
all matter can be reduced to fire-mist, and that all 
the materials now existing as worlds or world-fur- 
niture were once in that state. It goes on to state 
that the space around our world is now well stocked 
with such material particles. 

These particles are not distributed evenly. 
They are collected in moving clusters. Some of 
them appear to us as comets ; some remain for ever 
invisible to the naked eye while they sail through 
infinite space. The stronger and larger of these 
clusters have gathered others unto them. These 
are called nebula. 

• Science says there was a time when all space 
was pervaded by fire-mist, gas, and vapor. It was 


200 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


dark and motionless. Moses^ story, as we read it, 
says, ‘ And the earth was without form and void • 
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.’ 
Truly, it was ‘confused and invisible.’ Science 
says these particles were somehow set in motion. 
Moses says, ‘And the Spirit of God moved upou 
the face of the waters.’ Certain is it that fire-mist 
or nebulae began revolving in space. ‘And God 
said. Let there be light: and there was light.’ 
Just here some people had a good laugh. How 
could there be light when as yet there was no sun ? 
Now Science comes and says there must have been 
light before the sun was created ; that is, there 
must have been according to the nebular hypothe- 
sis. Some of the nebulous matter had acquired the 
density of stones. These stones, constantly whirling 
and striking against each other, emitted constant 
streams of light. Surely Moses was not so far 
wrong when he said, ‘And God saw the light, that 
it was good : and God divided the light from the 
darkness. And God called the light Hay, and the 
darkness he called Night. And the — ” 

“ Tally one for Moses !” broke in the captain, 
who stood leaning against the wall with his feet 
wide apart, one hand on liis hip, and his other 
thumb slipped into his vest-pocket. The man in 
the brown ulster cheered vigorously, and was sup- 
ported by the remainder of the party. Mr. Wick- 
litfe talked right along. When they became still 
enough to hear his voice again he was saying: 


GEOLOGY, GENESIS, AND GOSPEL. 201 


this immense mass of fire-mist revolv^ed, 
ring after ring was thrown off by centrifugal force 
as water is thrown from a whirliiip; grindstone. 
Ring after ring w’as thrown off, and went to make 
sun, star, planet, or world as God saw fit. The 
ring which formed our world gradually shaped 
itself into a ball made white hot by its own 
velocity, and gradually becoming more and more 
dense. After ages a crust was formed over this 
fiery globe surrounded as it was by deadly vapor. 
Water began to condense; rain fell on the burning 
mass, and returned again to vapor, only to become 
rain again and again until the fire was quenched 
and the torrents fell unhindered. They tell us that 
this sort of thing is being repeated — that there are 
worlds ye‘t Gvithout form and void.^ 

^‘An ocean then covered our world, wasting its 
furv, not upon the shore, for there was none, but 
upon the fire-burned crust beneath it. Moses said : 
^ And God made the firmament, and divided the wa- 
ters whicli were under the firmament from the waters 
which were above the firmament; and it was so. 

^^^And God called the firmament Heaven; and 
the—’ ” 

Tally another for Moses!” exclaimed the cap- 
tain. 

He’s got some nerve, he has. I couldn’t do 
better myself,” came in a stage whisper from the 
brown ulster. He did not say whether he referred 
to Moses or the speaker. 


202 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


• Not at all disturbed by these comments, the 
speaker went on : 

‘ And God said, Let the waters under the 
heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let 
the dry land appear : and it was so. 

‘ And God called the dry land Earth ; and the 
gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and 
God saw that it was good.’ 

Science says the waters obeyed this call. By 
reason of the cooling of the inward fires the earth’s 
crust began to shrivel and wrinkle; ridges rose out 
of the seas. After much cooling, uplift, erosion, sed- 
imentation, and the like, continents were formed.” 
(Cries of Tally one more for Moses !”) 

Then came life. For a time Science and Moses 
disagreed about that. Science said animal life came 
first — a very low form of animal life, it is true; 
but still animal life came first. Moses held his own 
with the words, L4.nd God said, Let the earth 
bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the 
fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed 
is in itself, upon the earth : and it was so.’ Science 
says, ^Yes, all that came in good time; but we 
can’t find traces of those first early beginnings; 
we can’t find traces of them before animal life 
came.’ But now honest Science has gone back to 
look over the ground again, and in good time will 
come up admitting that Moses was a man who 
knew what he was talking about. That is a wav 
honest Science has. Moses says the sun was created 


GEOLOGY, GENESIS, AND GOSPEL. 203 


OD tlie fourth day. Science says that just about that 
time the ring of fire-mist which formed the sun had 
reached the stage in which it began to give out light, 
and tlie moon shone by its reflected light; or else the 
rank vegetation with which the land was covered 
had taken up the deadly gases of the atmosphere, 
and the clouds that had enveloped the world began 
to lift and allow the sunlight to come through. The 
sun and moon and stars were there, and God set 
them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light 
upon the earth and to rule over the day and over 
the night ; and they have done it so well that we 
still set our watches by them. 

Moses kept on with his story : ^ And God said. 
Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving 
creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly 
above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.’ 
Science says, ^Yes; early birds and fishes were 
contemporaries. We have found a thing that we 
can’t tell whether it was bird or reptile. It had 
the feet and wings of one and the teeth and tail of 
the other.’ All this time vegetation was going on 
laying up the sunlight of that early age in solid 
fi')rni where man might find it. And there it is, 
the sunlight of a day which Moses described, shin- 
in a: in your stove to warm God’s last created crea- 
ture during this Nebraska blizzard.” 

Three cheers for Moses !” cried the captain ; 
and, as this speech was under his auspices, the cheers 
were given. 


204 


PdCHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN, 


And God said, Let the earth bring forth the^ 
living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping 
thing, and beast of the earth after his kind : and 
it was so/ Science says, ‘ Yes,’ and tells us of the 
strange beasts of those days; it shows us their 
skeletons and their footprints, and tells us their 
habits and what they ate. Right there Moses 
seems to stop and take a deep breath. Right there 
Science stops too, and then tells us of the ice age, 
during which the earth was ploughed and purified for 
man. Here was a step which for ever raises God’s 
next creation from all those which preceded it.’ 

Moses goes on with his story: ^And God 
said, Let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness.’ But, alas ! God’s image has been insult- 
ed, degraded, almost destroyed. Over in the New 
Testament it says, ^ If any man defile the temple 
of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of 
God is holy, which temple ye are.’ That first man 
was very like his sons : he wanted to question and 
find out things for himself, then disbelieve them if 
he chose. So he ate of the fruit of the tree of 
the knowdedge of good and evil. After that, in all 
man’s bitter future, there was only one hope. 
God promised to raise up a Saviour. He should 
be a man, that he might feel our sorrows, being 
tempted in all points as w^e are. He should be a 
God, to save us from our sins. 

“This Saviour came. Born in a manger in 
Bethlehem of Judea, as the prophets had foretold, 


GEOLOGY, GENESIS, AND GOSPEL. 205 


be lived and toiled as the lowliest of men, working 
with his hands. He was despised and rejected 
of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief. He suffered and died the death foretold of 
him, being led as a lamb to the slaughter. ‘Surely 
lie hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.’ 
‘ And he made his grave with the wicked and with 
the rich in his death,’ being crucified between two 
tliieves. Why was this? The record reads : ‘For 
God so loved the world that he gave his onlv-be- 
gotten Son, that whosoev^er believeth in him should 
not perish, but have everlasting life.’ That love 
was strong enough to reach down through time to 
this day and this place, and save us. Listen to 
Christ’s own words : ‘ Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ 
Him tliat cometh unto me I will in no wise cast 
out.’” 

Just there the speaker paused. The room was 
very still. No sound save that of the storm was 
heard during the prayer that followed — a prayer 
the like of which some of those men had never 
heard before. It meant every one of them. V/hen 
it was over the captain said : 

“Boys, let’s do our part of the religious, and take 
up a collection. Chip in right lively now, and then 
the theological squire will sing some. He’s got a 
mighty nice voice. I- heard him clear over to the 
saloon last night.” 


CHAPTER XXV. 

THE WA Y OF THE BLIZZARD. 


“ If you might always have, love, 

The sunshine and the flowers, 

And I the cold and loneliness 

Of dreary winter hours ; — • 

If any sweetness in my life 
Could answer to your claim, 

And I might bear whatever loss, 

Whatever wrong or pain, 

Would otherwise fall to you, love. 

As falls the summer rain, — 

I think I could not ask, love, 

For any happier hours 
Than just to know God sends to you 
The sunshine and the flowers.” 

— Lillian Wliiting. 

T ELEGRAPH-WIRES were down, trains were 
snowed in, and it might be days before the 
tracks would be clear for them. The Rev. Wick- 
cliffe was very anxious for his family. The state 
of his coal-box added not a little to his trouble. 
As for Richard Rogers, what even half-hearted 
lover ever failed to make his best speed toward the 
town that held his sweetheart? So, while Jenny 
Geddes was procuring coal and provisions, the men 
were starting for home. From Rushington east 
206 


THE WAY OF THE BLIZZARD. 207 

toward Boom City the railroad track stretched 
away, clean swept by the wind, and otfering a 
smooth footpath for the traveler. If it held clear 
for two or three hours, the distance might be 
traveled in safety and com})arative comfort. More 
than that, the wind was at their backs, and would 
help them on. For three miles everything was 
well ; then the wind changed, and with the snow- 
cloud sudden darkness came down upon them. 
For a while after this they went safely, feeling the 
track under their feet. Then the snow began to 
make, and they lost their way. 

The cut has blown full ; we have walked up 
over the drift,’’ said Mr. Wickliffe. 

And are lost,” added Richard Rogers. 

And are lost,” Mr. Wickliffe repeated. ‘^How 
are your eyes, my boy ?” 

“ Full of snow,” was the answer. Can’t we get 
back to Rushington ?” 

I don’t know which way it is,” the minister 
replied. “ Only God in his infinite mercy can help 
ns now. We could not find a house if there were 
one sixty feet away.” 

They stood for a few seconds with their arms 
around each other, calmly and bravely preparing 
for death. Before his faculties grew too much be- 
numbed each man committed himself and all dear 
to him to the care of the God whose ways are just. 
Then they pressed on. It were certain death to 
stand still. The frozen air chilled the tissues of 


208 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


their lungs and made breathing agony. Fine particles 
of ice filled their eyes, froze the lids together, filled 
their beards, and formed a mask over their faces. 
It had been a terrible fate had it come silently and 
softly, flake on flake piling higher and higher over 
them and folding them in a pure though dreadful 
winding sheet; but it was terrible beyond compare 
when accompanied by the winds let loose on their 
limitless battle-field. They fought for life, strug- 
gling as only strong men can struggle. E-ichard 
failed first. 

You must leave me,’’ he groaned. can go 
no farther.” 

I will never leave you,” replied the Kev. Cal- 
vin Wicklifie, with the storm thick in his face and 
the words freezing in his throat. Then, nerving his 
numb arm, he dealt Richard a blow on the shoulder. 
“ If you could give me a little love-pat like that, 
you might get some warmth in you. Let me hear 
another word about failing, and I will thrash you.” 

So they clung to each other and beat each other 
and fought on. Then Richard fell. He was a 
strong man in perfect health, but he was a city-bred 
man and unused to fighting storms. He was not 
hardened to them, as was his friend, who had 
struggled through ten Nebraska winters and their 
blizzards. Again they struggled on through the 
storm. 

With what agony of prayer they fought the 
deadening sense of cold and the sweet drowsiness 


THE WAY OF THE BLIZZARD. 


209 


stealing all through their frames only the good 
Father can know. 

Again Richard fell, this time against some object 
which moved. Another shape moved. Cattle — a 
straw-stack — they were saved ! The creatures 
moved a little, and allowed them to crawl into the 
warm burrows and still deeper holes eaten in the 
straw. Then the cattle pressed close to the stack 
and shielded them from the wind and snow, and 
by the warmth of their bodies comforted the men 
so near to perishing. 

You know how the storm raged that night. 

At sunrise the wind ceased shrieking and died 
away. It came again at times, but only to play 
the low notes of its most solemn harmony in the 
ice-laden tree-tops along the river-bottom. The 
snow dropped silently, and rested where it fell, alike 
on the railroad track, on the steps in front of Boom 
City’s business-houses, on the roofs of sod dwell- 
ings far off on the prairies ; alike on the graves of 
the whiskey-murdered cowboy, the tramp Whistler, 
and the baby Robbie. Silent and pure and beauti- 
ful, but with deadly danger to overburdened roofs. 
Alas ! it lay deep and pure and beautiful over 
almost imperceptible mounds on the prairies where 
human strength had failed and somebody’s loved 
ones found snow-white death. It lay deep around 
hundreds of straw-stacks where helpless cattle 
crouched as they did around this one which shel- 
tered Mr. Wickliffe and Richard Rogers. 

14 


210 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


They talked little — they were too worn. Eich- 
ard dreamed that he saw Jenny Geddes under bi'iglit 
sunny skies among tropical flowers — and was 
content. 

The farmer found them when he could get out 
to care for his cattle — found them cruelly frozen, 
hut not too late to save them. 

‘‘1 never felt so much like singing the Doxology 
before in my life,’^ said Mr. Wicklitfe when his 
wife and child were caring for him after he had 
reached home. 

At that moment Eichard Eogers was lying on 
the couch in the doctor’s parlor, and Mrs. Harvey 
was playing softly on the piano. 

“Give us Eichard’s favorite, Lena,” said the 
doctor. 

Mrs. Harvey turned around to face them : “Eich- 
ard has so many favorites, I never know which to 
choose. His taste is like the poet’s calendar — with 
a new selection for each day.” 

“ What might be your choice for to-night ?” the 
doctor asked as he moved toward his patient, eye- 
ing him critically. “ I say, boy, this last trip of 
yours has not been of any particular help to your 
beauty.” 

“ He will make fun of you now ; but you should 
know of the state he was in when he thought you 
lost,” said Mrs. Harvey. 

“ We used to read something like this in school,” 
said the doctor : 


THE WAY OF THE BLIZZARD. 


211 


“ ‘ Oft a shattered bowl 

Holds a mighty spirit.’ 

What was the rest of that, Lena ? — something 
about 


“ ‘Think, my gentle boys, 

Every man a brother ! 

That’s where honor lies — 

Nay, but greatness rather.’ ” 

Mrs. Harvey laughed : It went on something 
like this : 


“ ‘ Value not the lips 

Swiftest kept in motion : 

Fleetly-sailing ships 

Draw no depth of ocean.’ ” 

did not care to quote that; but Richard wants 
some music. What shall we sing?’^ 

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow/” 
Richard answered gravely. 

Alone in her bedroom, Jenny Geddes was sing- 
ing- , 

‘‘Something new has come over her,” said her 
landlady. “I never heard her singing the Dox- 
ology before.” 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


CLEANSING FIRES. 

“ As righteousness tendeth to life : so he that pursueth evil 
pursueth it to his own death ” — Prov, 11 ; 19. 

“ Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a 
man soweth, that shall he also reap.” — Gal. 6 : 7. 

I T was a radiant winter day — a Sabbath with no 
music of church-bells on the quiet air. There 
had been frost on the prairie-grasses in the early 
morning, and on north \valks. Along the north 
side of hedges the blizzard-packed snow still lay in 
drifts. It gave a touch of mud color to the land- 
scape, for the drifts were covered thick with dust 
which the wind had swept from the ploughed up- 
lands. Tlie dry cold of the air made one step more 
briskly and breathe more deeply, as though sure of 
one’s self and the air of one’s town. At noon the 
air had a bright benevolence, as though repenting 
its former harshness. It was like the days of In- 
dian summer in one’s childhood in one’s own native 
State. 

There were a few more loungers than usual about 
the streets or sitting on store-boxes and steps on the 
sunny side of buildings. Some farmers drove into 
212 


CLEANSING FIRES. 


213 


town ostensibly for their mail, and were also seen 
about the groceries in a way that indicated more or 
less trading. Toward night some village people 
walked to the post-office and deposited letters in the 
box in the door. There had been a goodly unmber 
of people at the preaching service in the school- 
house, and some new scholars in Sunday-school. 
On the whole, it had been a quiet, orderly day for 
Sunday in a frontier town. 

Night came. The sun went down behind a pile 
of dark-blue clouds whose upper and deeply-in- 
dented edges were bordered by a golden band, above 
which the sky was clearly, coldly blue. The stars 
came out; the full moon looked down on the quiet 
town — quiet all but the north side of the square, 
where Shiner’s Place seemed like the door of per- 
dition, for things on that side of the town were 
growing worse. Much had been said of late about 
taking steps to compel Shiner to move on. How- 
ever, nobody took them. 

At midnight there was a cry of fire. It was an 
explosion of an ill-kept lamp. Strong hands fought 
the flames, and out of Shiner’s burning building 
carried two bodies. It was too late to save the 
others, and drunken stupor prevented them from 
saving themselves. A young woman was carried 
to the sample-room of the hotel. Where should 
they take her? 

Bring her up to my rooms,” said Mrs. Wick- 

liffe. 


214 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


No one but the doctor and his wife were allowed 
to follow. People said it was better so. It was 
their business to do for everybody. The gossips 
never knew the story of those hours in the rooms 
over that grocery. 

• She was young, and she had been beautiful. She 
was in agony then, her body burned beyond saving, 
a brand of sin scorching her soul. 

I should not have come to this if I could have 
been where there was any good going on,^^ wailed 
the dying girl. * Can it be all our fault when no 
one helps us to do better? Aren’t there ministers 
and Christian women enough to come to these 
places and help us to do better? Why don’t 
they come before it’s too late? They don’t want 
to help us. No one but God can help us when 
we grow old. I think sometimes he won’t be 
half so hard on us as the world is. Prav, pray to 
Him who did not condemn that other woman. I 
heard my mother read that story when I was a little 
girl.” 

^ He came not to call the righteous, but sin- 
ners to repentance,’ ” Mrs. WicklifFe whispered. 
'' 'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as 
white as snow; though they be red like crimson, 
they shall be as wool.’” 

It is a disagreeable story. Throw the book 
aside, but guard your own more closely, be more 
tender to others. This might have been your 
daughter; for, oh ! this is the story of the world’s 


CLEANSING FIRES. 


215 


curse to-day. And lie that is without sin among 
you, let him first cast a stoue at her.^' 

The morning paper contained an account of a 
shocking affair, and you, in your strong- walled 
safety, wished that such things might be kept out 
of the papers. Yet behind the disgrace of which 
you read there was sorrow and suffering. Behind 
the sin and shame were- human souls perishing. 
The Man of Calvary lived and toiled and died as 
much for them as for you. There are no human 
fortifications strong enough to keep out the worst 
pain of this world. ^‘Uneasy lies the head that 
wears a crown.’’ Even love sometimes fails to 
make a soft pillow. You hold your baby close. 
Remember, 

“ These white-rose feet along the doubtful future 
Must bear a woman’s load ; 

Alas ! since woman has the heaviest burden, 

And walks the hardest road. 

“ Love, for a w'hile, will make the path before them 
All dainty, smooth, and fair- — 

Will cut away the brambles, letting only 
The roses blossom there. ' 

“But when the mother’s watchful eyes are shrouded 
Away from sight of men, 

And these dear feet are left without her guiding, 

Who shall direct them then? 

“How will they be allured, betrayed, deluded, 

Poor little untaught feet ! 

Into what dreary mazes will they wander? 

What dangers will they meet ? 


216 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


“Will they go stumbling blindly in the darkness 
Of Sorrow’s tearful shade ? 

Or find the upland slopes of Peace and Beauty, 

Whose sunlight never fades ? 

“ Will they go toiling up Ambition’s summit, 

The common world above ? 

Or in some nameless vale, securely sheltered, 

• Walk side by side with Love ? 

“ Some feet there be which walk life’s track un wounded, 
W^hich find but pleasant ways ; 

Some hearts there be to which this life is only 
A round of happy days. 

“ But they are few. Far more there are who wander 
Without a hope or friend, 

W^ho find their journey full of pains and losses. 

And long to reach the end ! 

“How shall it be with her, the tender stranger. 

Fair-faced and gentle-eyed. 

Before whose unstained feet the world’s rude highway 
vStretches so strange and wide ?” 

You do not know. Perhaps she may meet a 
sadder fate than this. Then be gentle with those 
who have met too strong temptation. 

Over in the hotel a young man was dying with 
profanity on his lips. The wages of sin were 
beginning to be paid in the agony of the remorse of 
that death-bed. The world, with ghoulish euriosity, 
followed and looked at him. Remember, he might 
have been your boy — good and pure once, but now 
wrecked on the Dead Sea of immorality. 

Don’t bring any of your preachers around here. 


CLEANSING FIRES. 


217 


You are too late, I tell you. Ten years ago you 
might have done me some good. Keep away now, 
I tell you. My mother never believed in home 
missionaries. She was tired of being asked to give 
money for their support. No missionary is going 
to pray over her son now. Wonder what the old 
lady would say to see him now? Keep away, I tell 
you — I know you are a preacher. Don’t tell moth- 
er how I died. It would break her heart.” 

“ Cross his hands on his bosom now ; 

Somebody’s darling is still and dead.” 

And he might have been your boy ! 

Tlie wind came steadily from the south that 
night, and blew the flames away from the other 
buildings, for the north part of town was thinly 
settled. Only two houses besides Shiner’s Place 
were burned. 

People talked over the horror of the Are, then 
recalled Whistler’s accident in the lumber-yard and 
Robbie Dietrich’s death. Some said it was the 
wrath of the Lord hot against evil-doers ; the hand 
of the Lord was reforming Boom City. Other 
some said it was only high wind, cholera infantum, 
and carelessness. These had not been far wrong 
had they gone a little farther and added that when 
a man sins he puts himself in line with circum- 
stances which, from their nature, must bring him 
trouble, perhaps death. Would that more people 
believed this ! It might help save them. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


HIRED HOUSES AND OTHER UNCERTAiyTIES. 


“ Discouraged ! Why ? 

Doth love e’er die ? 

Doth God forget his own ? 
The sparrow’s cry 
Doth reach the sky : 

Is thine the less upborne ? 

Discouraged ? Nay, 
When God’s great ‘ Yea 
And Amen’ seals his love, 
Each blessed day 
Hope lights the way 
To rest and joy above.” 



OOM CITY had experienced the deterioration 


^ of race that comes from emigration ; it now 
began to feel the uplifting influence of Christianity, 
for the leaven of righteousness that would have 
saved Sodom was working there. Many a ^yestern 
town owes its salvation and business prosperity to 
the fact that it holds ten righteous people. 

The blizzard was one of tlie things that worked 
for good for Boom City. The story of the minis- 
ter’s struggle with the storm was told, and all grew 
interested in him. A man must have something to 
say who so frequently risked freezing and starva- 


218 


HIRED HOUSES. 


219 


tion to say it. He liad proved himself possessed 
of nerve; therefore his religion was respected. 
Richard Rogers, too, received his share of hero- 
worship. It was the Rev. Calvin WicklillVs busi- 
ness to preach, some argued ; of course he ought to 
attend to it. But the lumber-dealer did his share 
of Christian work because he thought he ought to 
do it. He was not accused of working: at reliirion 
to earn popularity, for religion was not the popular 
thing in the lumber business. It might seem to 
harmonize with some occupations, like that of 
undertaker (the implement-man argued), but the 
lumber business in a growing town is of a de- 
cidedly worldly nature ; and when a man works at 
religion along with it, his religion must be of the 
kind that will wear well. In business matters the 
lumber-dealer’s ‘Miead was level;” there must be 
something in religion worth a man’s attention or 
Richard Rogers, busy man as he was, would not 
attend to it. So the business man’s influence went 
farther with business men than did the minister’s. 
It was something like not allowing a man on jury 
who can be supposed to know anything about the 
case. 

The sewing society, though the cause of some 
trouble, yet made a pure social centre. The i)rayer- 
meetings at Dr. Harvey’s were, more largely at- 
tended, for, after the meetings, there was always some 
good music. In this seed-time of Christian work 
some germs fell by the wayside ; some would bring 


220 RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 

forth fruit, thirty, sixty, perhaps an hundred- 
fold. 

Two weeks after the fire the grocer sold out his 
business. The purchaser would live in the rooms 
now occupied by the Wickliffes, and therefore the 
said Wickliffes must move. But where ? Several 
house-huntings revealed only the fact that there 
were no empty rooms in town. Mrs. Wickliffe 
returned one afternoon from such an unsuccessful 
trip. She was very tired and a little discouraged. 
Wife-like, she would brighten up when her hus- 
band returned from the funeral that night. She 
would tell him only the bright side. He should 
think it not so very bad to be turned out of house 
and home in the winter. But while she walked 
home, facing a bitter wind, her life seemed very 
hard to her. I think her trouble would have 
made most of us discouraged. To be obliged to 
move in inclement weather, with no place to move 
to and no money to pay the rent, is discouraging. 
But Mrs. Wickliffe’s trouble was deeper than that. 

The present state of things brought disgrace 
upon the Church of Christ — there was her deepest 
hurt. To many of the foreigners the minister’s 
home gave a new view of Christianity. She knew 
she was capable of making that home preach louder 
sermons than come from any pulpit ; yet she knew 
that her poor home, its unpaid rent, and her own 
pitiful sacrifices brought scorn upon the cause she 
loved and for which she was giving her life. The 


HIRED HOUSES. 


221 


religion of Jesus uplifts woman. America boasts 
of the honor she pays to womanhood. Yet here 
was the cultured wife of one of the chosen soldiers 
of the Cross pitifully searching for shelter while 
her husband went about his Master’s work. And 
it M^as a disgrace to the Church that allowed such 
things to be — not the little church in Boom City, 
that was holding her own against fearful odds, but 
the whole great wealthy Church all over the 
land. 

It is no use,” Mrs. Wickliffe almost sobbed as 
she reached the foot of the stairs. It is too bitter 
a sacrifice.” 

A young man was standing on the lowest step, 
looking about the square while he unconcernedly 
whistled Grandfather’s Clock.” Had he been a 
woman he would have cried instead. He was 
homesick and, what is worse, ‘Gonesome.” A man 
with a bottle had just been along and had asked 
him to ‘Hake something.” He wondered if he had 
nerve enough to refuse another invitation of the 
kind. He stepped to one side as Mrs. Wickliffe 
approached ; as she went up the stairs he took off 
his hat and spoke to her : 

“Madam, I understand that Mr. Wickliffe lives 
here.” 

“ He does. Would you like to see him ? I am 
sorry to say that he is not at home. He is attend- 
ing a funeral ; but it is nearly night, and he will 
be at home soon.” 


222 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRlSllAN. 


I waDtecl to see you aud the young man- 
looked squarely though bashfully into her face, 
uhile a flush showed all over his face through the 
tan. 

Come in.’’ 

He followed her up the stairs, and stood by the 
door holding his hat while she opened the draught 
in the stove and put a shovelful of coal on the 
fire. 

Will you be seated? ,What can I do for you?” 
she asked. • 

He shifted his hat from his right to his left hand 
before he replied, 

Will you shake hands with me?” 

Mrs. Wicklifle held out her hand while her eyes 
questioned his face. He had a fair complexion and 
an ^Hmcertain prophecy of beard.” He was hardly 
twenty years old. 

Certainly I will shake hands with you, and be 
very glad to. It seems that I must have known 
you somewhere. You will pardon me that I can’t 
tell where. Where was it that you knew me?” 

‘^Nowhere. I never saw you before, and never 
shall again. I reckoned you was the preacher’s 
wife when I saw you coming. I have been herd- 
ing cattle near here all summer, and stayed around 
this winter. That’s how I heard tell of you. I 
am going away to-morrow, and wanted to bid 
somebody good-bye before I go. I had a good 
Christian mother, and she taught me to try to be 


HIRED HOUSES. 


223 


like her; but it’s hard to make that stick out here.” 
Tlieu he went on, as if it might be necessary to ex- 
plain himself still further; “I am going off among 
a lot of tough fellows where business is better. I 
thought it would be easier to stay decent if I could 
shake hands with some good woman and tell her 
good-bye before I go. I could kind o’ have it to 
think of, vou know. I thought mavbe you would 
do it, ’cause I heard how you said folks that’s try- 
ing to do the square thing is all brothers and sisters. 
I reckoned you would seem like mother. ’Sposed 
you was older. 1 came into town on purpose. It 
gives a fellow courage to have a decent woman 
notice him. I ain’t so bad as some of the fellows, 
or I should not be here.” 

“I thank you for the compliment; but, really, I 
am almost old enough to be your mother. We will 
play that I am. I am very glad you came to see 
me, and sorry that my husband is not at home. 
He would like to see you too. Won’t you wait for 
him ? Stay to tea with us.” 

can’t. Have to ride thirty miles to-night.” 

I should like to give you something to remem- 
ber me by. What shall it be? Wait one moment, 
])lease.” She brought out a dainty copy of Miss 
Havergal’s 3Iy King. It had been a gift to her, 
and was very precious; but it might help save 
somebody’s boy, and she gave it. She wrote his 
name on the fly-leaf, and added, ^^From his sincere 
friend, Mrs. Mary Wickliffe.” 


224 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


Then Mrs. Wick lifFe gave him many kind wislies. 
As she placed her hand in his she raised herself on 
tip-toe and kissed his forehead. She was a Chris- 
tian mother bidding another Christian mother’s boy 
good-bye. The boy went out from her presence with 
a surprised and delightfully warm feeling about his 
heart. He went through many temptations, but he 
kept himself from sins that the “other fellows” 
committed. Had Mrs. Wickliffe watched his life, 
she never would have had cause to blush that she 
had once kissed him good-bye. You know he 
might have been your boy. 

That evening Mrs. Wickliffe laid her tired head 
on her husband’s broad shoulder and told him all 
about the young man’s call ; but she said nothing 
of her discouragement, and how she had been ready 
to give up. 

The next morning Lon Dietrich brought news. 
A family of Swedes living in a two-roomed house 
near Mr. Garrett’s were about to leave town. Mr. 
Wickliffe could have the house they vacated. 

“ It ain’t no palace,” said Lon confidentially, 
“ but there ain’t no stairs hitched to it. It might 
not be extra clean, but whitewash is good for 
such a place, and Rogers has lots of lime. I’ll 
put the whitewash on for you as quick as ever 
they git out.” 

So it was that one bitterly cold day in March 
Mr. Wickliffe moved his family into the house that 
Lou Dietrich had whitewashed. 


HIRED HOUSES, 


225 


“ I would like to build a nice little house for a 
parsonage and rent it to you,” said Richard Rogers, 
who was helping put up the Wickliffe cook-stove ; 

but, you see, I can’t do it. The failure of last 
year’s crops almost broke me up. I have trusted 
too much — though how is a man to help it? I 
have more than enough coming to me to pay my 
debts and do business in good shape, but I can’t 
collect it. Sometimes I can’t see my way two days 
ahead.” 

“ You have to live only one day at a time,” the 
Rev. Wickliffe observed. He was on his knees 
adjusting the stove-legs. There was an artistic 
streak of soot down one side of his nose, and his 
hands were grimy. 

I know,” replied Richard. “ I am glad you 
remind me of that so often. I think I am in- 
clined to want to do everything all up at once.” 
He stepped back and squinted one eye to make sure 
the stove was square wdth the chimney. 

You can’t do it in this world, my boy. You 
need only one day’s work and one day’s bread in 
one day;” and Mr. Wickliffe picked up an extra 
length of seven-inch pipe that Lon Dietrich had 
brought and set it down over a length of six-inch 
pipe that belonged with his stove. ^‘God gives 
his children help one day at a time. Trust him 
for the future. Some of us would make little 
progress spiritually were we not obliged to trust. 
You know — 


15 


226 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


‘ The steps of faith 
Fall on a seeming void, and find 
The Rock beneath/ 

“I often thiiik/^ said Richard, ^^that I can trust 
the Lord for the salvation of my immortal soul 
much more easily than I can trust my business to 
him/’ 

You must pray as Moses prayed : ^ And let 
the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us ; and 
establish thou the work of our hands upon us.’ I 
thought your business was picking up ?” 

“ It is, and now I really expect to be able to hold 
my own until harvest. That is, I shall, if there is 
a prospect of good crops. It all depends on the 
crops. One good harvest will put us all on our feet 
in business shape.” 

The church prospects will improve then also,” 
Mr. WicklifFe observed, as he held the stove-pipe 
while Richard stood on a box and fitted it into the 
chimney. 

‘^Indeed they will,” Richard replied, still strug- 
gling with the pipe. '' We shall have a new church 
in the fall, and see you living in a better way. 
There is not a member of the church but would 
do almost anything to see you in more comfortable 
quarters.” 

We shall get on all right,” said Mr. Wield life 
as he began to build the fire. My wife is a brave 
little woman, though it does cut me to the heart to 
see her endure hardships. She says she took rented 


HIRED HOUSES. 


227 


houses into consideration when she decided to many 
a home missionary/’ 

“Who is going to marry a home missionary?” 
asked Mrs. Wickliffe, coming in. “ I caught only 
vour last words, and I am interested. That is 
something I know all about.” 

“ My remark was in the past tense,” her husband 
replied with a smile. “ I am afraid you will be 
cold, dear. I have only just built'the fire.” 

“ I shall work fast enough to keep warm. Miss 
Geddes is coming to help me after school, and I 
want thiuirs to look nice when she comes.” 

Whereupon Richard bestirred himself in setting 
back chairs and unpacking tinware. 

“ How is it that you seem to have so much time 
nowadays?” asked Mrs. Wickliffe. 

“Some of the men who are out of work are 
using my office for a reading-room,” Richard an- 
swered. “One of them comes for me if there are 
any signs of a customer.” 

“Thnt is a good, idea of yours,” Mr. Wickliffe 
said. “You are getting hold of several boys who 
would otherwise be in mischief. That is a well- 
selected library of yours.” 

“ As far as it goes ; there are hardly enough 
books for children in it,” Richard observed as he 
began to saw a board for a shelf. “I am going to 
get some more young folks’ literature as soon as 
times are a little better. We get along nicely now 
with our papers.” 


228 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


‘^What periodicals do you take?^’ Mrs. 'NVick- 
lilfe inquired. 

We have Harper’s Ilagazine, The New York 
Mail and Express, The Church at Home and Abroad, 
The Interior, au Omaha paper, and our Boom City 
Bugle. Lately we have added Harper’s Young 
People, The Youth’s Companion, and Treasure 
Trove. The school-boys are liappy. Oh, we have 
quite a reading-room. The men bring their home 
papers, so all are suited. For books I have Ma- 
caulay complete, Scott, Dickens, and Hawthorne. 
I have something from H. H. and Craddock; we 
have Mark Twain and Stanley’s travels. The boys 
have enough to keep them busy for some time.” 

So they worked away, home-building and plan- 
building. Miss Geddes came and joined in both. 
The two rooms contained no hint of either closet 
or pantry; cupboard there was none. But the 
rooms were larger than those over the grocery, and 
this would be an advantage as soon as warm 
weather came. There were plenty of windows, 
and, as Lon Dietrich had said, there were not any 
stairs. The change was for the better. The next 
day Mr. Wickliffe made more furniture out of pine 
lumber. Mr. Rogers came in the afternoon and, 
man-like, gave Mrs. Wickliffe advice about her 
dish-cupboard. He also helped Miss Geddes cush- 
ion a lounge. It was dark when the task \vas com- 
pleted, and the young man walked home around by 
Miss Geddes’ boarding-place. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


RICHARD AND JENNY. 

“ How can I tell the signals and the signs 
By which one heart another heart divines? 

How can I tell the many thousand ways 
By which it keeps the secret it betrays T 

all the world loves a lover/’ and Boom City 
-La. ^vas no exception to the general rule. The 
lumber-dealer and the village school-teacher did 
not go together/’ as the saying is ; but, neverthe- 
less, the town council and the sewing society were 
of the opinion that these two people had a deep- 
seated interest in each other. True, Miss Geddes’ 
landlady said that Mr. Rogers never called upon 
M iss Geddes in her house. The good lady did not 
believe there was any reason to think that Mr. Rog- 
ers meant to marry Miss Geddes. But good-humored 
public opinion, always willing to believe there is 
more to a love-story than can be found out, knew 
that Mr. Rogers saw Miss Geddes very often, either 
at Mrs. Wickliffe’s or the doctor’s house. Of 
course they must marry — there was no one else in 
town for either one of them to marry. Mr. Rogers 
was so much liked, and Miss Geddes had such a 

229 


230 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


happy disposition! More than that/^ said public 
opinion : they would make such a splendid-look- 
ing couple 

It is not to be disputed that the theological - 
medical circle had the fullest sympathy for those 
two young people. There was much teasing from 
the doctor (for which his wife afterward reprov^ed 
him), and there were some sly remarks from the 
minister, who professed to have an unlimited supply 
of a certain kind of blanks on hand. 

Sometimes, when alone with his conscience, 
Richard Rogers called himself names. ‘^Miserable 
brute,’’ cold-blooded bear,” occurred to him as 
proper terms for himself when he thought of the 
lecture lie had given Miss Geddes on the evening 
of that memorable sewing society. He had forgot- 
ten that she really had deserved more severe cen- 
sure than he gave her. There are many girls whose 
first ignorant, thoughtless acts are remembered as 
certain signs of depravity, who, had they found in 
their lovers men of Richard Rogers’ nobility of 
character, would suddenly have become thoughtful, 
and under such influence developed into women of 
ideal graces. There is much said of a girl’s in- 
fluence over her lover; but, as his hands are the 
stronger, so is his influence. It is a fact that so- 
ciety learns slowly and sadly. It would be well to 
talk of this to the boys occasionally, instead of 
listening to their recitals of Adam’s excuse. 

With Richard Rogers love-making was a serious 


RICHARD AND JENNY. 


231 


business. He was at an age when love goes deep 
into a man’s lieart; he could not put it away 
lightly if it were not reciprocated. He was a man 
of great natural self-respect. He kept his mother’s 
memory in his heart along with a high ideal of the 
woman whom he hoped to find for a wife some day. 
At twenty-eight, thoughts of love and emotions of 
passion came to him with a sense of delicious sur- 
prise. Hitherto unthought-of words of love and 
expressions of tenderness came into his mind. He 
was surprised at the richness of his mother-tongue, 
yet found it incapable of expressing his love for 
Jenny Geddes. Each meeting with her sent him 
back to his office to think of his future with min- 
gled hope and fear. Hojie gave it the brightest 
colors, while fear made a monochromatic picture. 

So he waited, telling himself that she should 
have plenty of time to know him thoroughly be- 
fore he asked her to be his wife. And while he 
waited and asked God’s guidance — for He who 
made human hearts made them for each other, and 
knows when two should be one — his love became 
exalted in its strength and calmness. 

As for paying her attentions, making furniture 
out of dry-goods boxes for one’s friends gives a 
young couple much better opportunity to decide as 
to their mutual adaptability in marriage than do 
charity balls or Sunday-school picnics. 

I regret to say that Jenny Geddes had been called 
a flirt; but that tendency dropped away from her 


232 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


when she stood in the dust-laden wind on the street- 
corner and read grave disapproval in Richard Rog- 
ers’ eyes. Then came days of self-reproach, followed 
by the trial the blizzard brought to her, and Jenny 
Geddes became a patient, enduring, loving Christian 
woman. We may thank God if we can call such 
a woman our friend. Then there came to her the 
secure sense that Richard Rogers loved her, that 
their spirits were one, and that here or hereafter 
their lives might be united. It is the way the 
highest form of love often comes — slowly, as the 
most natural thing in the world. 

There are no sudden transitions in nature, no 
bursting into being of things that were not. The 
full-leaved plant is foreshadowed in the seed. As 
with natural, so with spiritual, growth. Precious 
germs must be nourished by the cotyledons of a 
pure heart. The sweet red rose of perfect married 
happiness does not unfold from a soiled and mis- 
used bud. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 
GREAT IN LITTLE THINGS. 


“ What can I do to-day ? 

Not praise to win or glory to attain, 

Not gold or ease or power or love to gain, 

Or pleasure gay ; 

But to impart 

Joy to some stricken heart ; 

To send a heaven-born ray 
Of hope, some sad, despairing 
Soul to cheer ; 

To lift some weighing doubt ; 

Make truth more clear ; 

Dispel some dwarfing fear ; 

To lull some pain ; 

Bring to the fold again 
Some lamb astray ; 

To brighten life for some one 
Now and here, — 

This let me do to-day.” 

I T was a bright spring clay, seemingly all the 
brighter by contrast, for dull weather had pre- 
ceded it. Life in herb and'tree, bird and beast, put 
forth new energy. Human lives seemed quickened, 
as if suddenly there was more to live for than the 
world had furnished before. The merchants’ minds 
were on spring trade; farmers were intent on crops; 

233 


234 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


housekeepers and home-makers went about witli 
quick step and knit brows, talking of house-clean- 
ing. The feminine mind not burdened with house- 
hold cares gave itself to spring hats. 

As it was Saturday afternoon, there was no school 
to think of. Miss Geddes was sitting by her table, 
resting her head upon her hands and thinking. 
Before her lay a pile that might be denominated 
odds and ends. From these odds and ends she 
meant to evolve a spring hat. From an artistic 
point of view there was little prospect of success. 
The last fall’s gray straw quarreled with the velvet 
from last winter’s hat. The velvet was of a golden 
tint, a few shades lighter than her hair. It was 
beautiful by itself or on the black hat of last win- 
ter, but the gray straw spoiled it. Miss Geddes 
looked at the ribbon, which had been pretty the 
season before. Positively its last appearance,” 
she said, and tossed it from her. The subject was 
an important one when considered in all its phases 
and bearings, for that young lady had decided that 
her spring hat should go (by the way of the col- 
lection plate) to supply certain needs in the Wick- 
liffe family. 

She looked out of the window and waited for 
an inspiration. The inspiration appeared as Mrs. 
Wickliffe picked her way across the muddy street. 
Miss Geddes met her at the door. 

I have been visiting sick people all the after- 
noon, and it’s delightful to be met by such a glowing 


GREAT IN LITTLE THINGS. 


235 


face in my last call/^ said Mrs. Wickliffe as she 
seated herself in Miss Geddes’ rocking-chair. 

I am not the least wee little bit sick/^ laughed 
Miss Geddes, but 1 am really in sore trouble, for 
all that.^^ 

I am so sorry cried Mrs. AVickliffe, in quick 
sympathy. Caif t I help you? Tell me your 
trouble. I can’t think it so very deep while you 
wear that face.” 

I am trying to create a spring hat,” Miss Ged- 
des replied soberly. ‘^No; it is more like raising a 
hat from the seed. There is the what to make it of.” 

Mrs. AVickliffe took the gray straw in one hand 
and the velvet in the other. ^‘That is such a pretty 
shape, and so becoming to you !” she said. Then 
she went on, quite irrelevantly : I have been to 
see Mrs. Dietrich. Her baby is beautiful ” — hei;e 
INIrs. Wickliffe held the hat at arm’s length and 
looked at it critically — a princess could not ask 
for a lovelier child. He is perfect in form and 
feature. They tell me that he looks like the little 
one who died last summer. Mrs. Dietrich spoke 
of naming the baby after the other little one — Rob- 
bie, I think his name was— but Mr. Dietrich wishes 
to call him Rogers instead. Robbie loved Mr. 
Rogers, they say. They are very happy over their 
baby. Miss Geddes, did you ever try shoe-blacking?’’ 

‘^Frequently,” said Miss Geddes, glancing in- 
quiringly at her shoes. 

“ 1 meant on straw hats.” 


236 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


Never.” 

I have tried it, and it works wonders and 
Mrs. Wickliife nodded her head reassuringly. 
“ Really, if I were you, I would take this lining 
out and go over the hat carefully with Acme black- 
ing. You may have to give it two coats. It will 
dry nicely and look like new black straw. Then 
trim it with the velvet, and you will have a hand- 
some new hat.” 

Miss Geddes spread an Omaha Bee on the table 
and brought out a bottle of shoe-blacking, while 
Mrs. Wickliffe ripped the lining from the hat. 

Pat Henry has promised to come to Sunday- 
school next Sunday,” Miss Geddes observed as she 
aj)p]ied the sponge to the crown of the straw. 

‘^He has? that is grand!” and Mrs. Wickliffe 
bent over the hat. That blacking will be a suc- 
cess. Miss Geddes, you are doing splendidly with 
those boys of yours. There was a time when I was 
so afraid that you would give the class up.” 

Would they be any better off after I gave them 
uj) ?” and Miss Geddes held the hat up for inspection. 

No, indeed, they would not,” Mrs. Wickliffe 
replied. ^‘1 am afraid it’s their last chance for any- 
thing which could be called religious instruction.” 

^^It is certainly their first chance,” said Miss 
Geddes thoughtfully. I have great hope of my 
boys. They are bright and full of business — some 
would say mischief, but I call it business. The 
very traits that make them wriggle all over the seat 


GREAT IN LITTLE THINGS. 


237 


and piuch each other in prayer-time will make ac- 
tive men of them. Why must we let the devil 
have our smartest boys just because they are hard 
to manage?’^ 

^^You are right, Miss Geddes. I feel rebuked 
for my lack of fhith/’ 

“1 did not. mean to rebuke you; but my boys 
are very precious to me;’^ and Miss Geddes’ eyes 
showed the deeper current of her nature. That 
current was ruling now, carrying her to a noble 
womanhood, as Mrs. Harvey had proj)hesied. 

understand you, dear; you are doing a good 
work. I feel so much rested by my call on you. 
I shall take credit to myself when I see your new 
hat on the street.” 

Indeed, you may take all the credit of it.” 

I must hurry, for I am to call upon Mrs. Gar- 
rett on my way home. I thought I was too tired to 
make another call, but I find I can now, thanks to 
you. Your presence is like sunshine.” 

‘‘ And I thought I was having the blues all the 
afternoon,” cried Miss Geddes. 

Oh, you were not. Don’t let yourself think 
that.” 

Miss Geddes stood in the doorway and watched 
her friend as she went along the street. 

^^That dear soul never will suspect the bill came 
from me,” she thought. ‘^She thinks I am too 
poor to have a new hat. I do hope Mrs. Garrett 
will be in good humor.” 


238 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


Mrs. Garrett was not in good humor. She knew 
she was becoming very unpopular, and, being hu- 
man, she was inclined to blame others for it. She 
had freely spoken her mind. A woman of decided 
views is always listened to with more or less atten- 
tion. In this case it was less. In proportion as 
people disliked her they pitied and admired the 
gentle little Southern woman. Miss Bryan was 
very quiet and low-spoken (when no one mentioned 
the late war). She had a knack of putting people 
at their ease with her. So the trouble known as 
^^Mrs. Garrett’s fuss” was allowed to drop save 
between the two most concerned in it. These two 
women still went to church ; both attended the 
sewing society, each wholly ignoring the other. 
Each told her pastor’s wife all her trouble. 

Mrs. Wickliffe listened while the pain in her 
head became more and more confusing ; the feeling 
of weariness grew harder and harder to bear. She 
wondered why it tired her so to make calls, why 
she almost dreaded to have people call upon her. 
She did not own that her strength was failing. In- 
stead, she tried to help bear her husband’s burdens. 

The Rev. Calvin Wickliffe was working early 
and late, for he must keep up with the times. There 
were several college graduates in town, and they 
were watching the minister closely. Aside from 
his regular work in Boom City, he must walk 
miles out on the prairie to hold meetings in school- 
houses, visit the sick, or attend funerals. Then, 


GREAT IN LITTLE THINGS. 


239 


too, he must preach in other neighborhoods as often 
as possible. 

In the field which Mr. Wicklifie was expected to 
tend there was work enough for four men. There 
were times when he felt that, with his wife, he 
stood alone in the modern Pass of Tliermopylse 
defending the land against wickedness and heathen- 
ism of a hundred different forms. Yet the work of 
this one man told. With him for a leader the busi- 
ness men formed a sort of moral vigilance committee. 
There were no more Sunday fights. There were to 
be no more drinking-places in town. This fact was 
mentioned in advertising town-lots and desirable 
business openings. Real-estate agents took care to 
mention that there was to be a church building 
erected during the coming autumn. 

As the season advanced there was every indica- 
tion of good crops. There were many new settlers 
of the better class, and business prospects bright- 
ened. 

Mrs. Wickliffe still did her own housework and 
encouraged her husband, still called upon sick 
people, still listened to Miss Bryan’s mournful 
stories, still soothed Mrs. Garrett. 

There are a great many people who have a 
chronic need of comfort. They are moral and 
spiritual parasites. Sympathy they must have, no 
matter at how great a nervous cost to their friends. 
There are forms of deep-sea life which give out no 
light themselves, yet possess large organs of vision 


240 RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 

and live in the phosphorescent light given out by 
others. So in spiritual things. Tliose who them- 
selves have little light or hope or peace are con- 
stantly absorbing the life of those around them. 

‘‘ 1 never thought that it would come to this/^ 
said Miss Bryan, one morning, as she sat in the 
Wickliffe kitchen-parlor and watched Mrs. Wick- 
lifpe mould bread. Miss Bryan herself was out- 
lining wheat-heads and other artistic things on a 
white apron for Hope. 

I never thought it would come to this,’’ Miss 
Bryan repeated. I have taken care of our Carle- 
ton ever since he was a baby. You see, I being 
the eldest, all the care came on me after papa and 
mamma died.” 

The oldest sister has almost a mother’s cares,” 
Mrs. Wickliffe observed. 

Yes, indeed, she has;” and Miss Bryan sewed 
faster. I was so fond of the children, and they 
were of me ! Carleton used to say he would take 
care of me when he grew up. He would work and 
get rich, and I should be the mistress of his home, 
even if he did marry. I believed him then. I had 
to take care of him so many years, I never thought 
that my little brother Carleton would put me away 
for any other woman. But he has, and I really be- 
lieve he has forgotten what he used to promise me. 
I mentioned it to him the other day, and he looked 
at me so queer ! His wife says she did not marry 
the whole family. She is not as anxious to have 


GREAT IN LITTLE THINGS. 


241 


me live with them as I should think she would be. 
I feel as though I had lost my little brother.’^ 

Miss Biyau was not the first woman to learn that 
brothers are sometimes the most faithless of lovers. 
Love in a narrow mind, like a cuckoo in a hedge- 
sparrow’s nest, crowds out the smaller affections. 

God never takes anything from us, even the 
love of an earthly fidend, without making it up to 
us in some way if we trust him,” said Mrs. Wick- 
liffe. Sometimes he makes it up to us by giving 
us more of himself. I often think of these lines 
from French : 

“ ‘ If there had anywhere appeared in space 
Another place of refuge where to flee, 

Our hearts had taken refuge in that place, 

And not with thee.’ 

God wants to teach us how much better his will 
is for us than our fondest earthly planning.” 

‘^Oh, I am resigned to the Lord’s will,” said 
Miss Bryan decidedly. I can give up the dear 
ones he takes from me ; but I am not, and cannot 
be, resigned to my sister-in-law.” 

Perhaps God wants you to have that sister-in- 
law.” 

^^Oh, I can’t think it.” 

I once read of a lady who was greatly troubled 
about life’s little things,” said Mrs. Wickliffe. It 
was so hard for her to be patient under little annoy- 
ances ! Like you, she thought that she was resigned 
to God’s will; but she could not see that the saud- 
16 


242 BICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 

l)last of little things was God’s way of polishing 
her Christian character. At last she dreamed that 
she was surrounded all the while by the presence 
of God in the form of a bright cloud. Outside 
of this were all sorts of terrors; but the cloud 
must move of its own accord to let even the small- 
est trial reach her. So she saw that everything 
came to her by God’s will — that his presence moved 
aside to let troubles come to her, and yet sur- 
rounded her still. Then she knew that even the 
disagreeable doings of disagreeable people were just 
the things that God saw were best for her and 
wanted her to have.” 

^^They are just bound up in that baby,” said 
Miss Bryan, changing the subject. ‘^She is a 
sweet little thing — all Bryan. Bell is extravagant 
in the child’s clothes. She has put short dresses 
on her this week, and not a single dress but what 
cost over five dollars; and here you have to do 
your own washing, Mr. Wickliffe rubbing (lie 
clothes out before breakfast. It’s a shame ! Why, 
you are equal to any people I ever knew in the 
South. That child would do well enough creeping 
in gingham slips. I asked Carleton to give me 
some money for the church, but he says he can’t 
afford to do it. He will give me something when 
they come to build, because it will increase the 
value of his building-lots. Carleton was raised to 
go to church. It is his wife who makes him as 
he is. He would be different if he had a differ- 


GREAT IN LITTLE THINGS. 


243 


ent wife. I am going to get some fine sewing to 
do. I never did sew for money, but I have got to 
have some money for the church.’’ 

‘‘The baby must be a great comfort to you.” 

“She is. I don’t see how I could live without 
her. I think sometimes I had better go and live 
with my sister — she always liked to have me with 
her — but I can’t bear to leave this baby. Some- 
times it seems that she is the only one I have left 
who will let me love her. Perhaps it is foolish for 
a woman of my age to -be so fond of babies, but I 
cannot help it. I can’t help envying women who 
have them of their own.” 

There was something tragic in her words, for 
the woman’s strength was in her love, and she went 
loveless for the sake of the soldier who had been 
dead so long. It is hard to comfort where the need 
of comfort must not be mentioned. 

“ There is a sweet little poem that helps when 
one feels so alone,” said Mrs. Wickliffe. “ It is by 
Keble. Let me repeat it for you.” 

And she began, in a voice like low music: 

“ ‘ There are who sigh that no fond heart is theirs, 

None love them best. O vain and selfish sigh I 
Out of the bosom of His love he spares 
The Father spares the Son for thee to die : 

For thee he died, for thee he lives again ; 

O’er thee he watches in his boundless reign. 

“ ‘ Thou art as much his care as if, beside. 

Nor man nor angel lived in heaven or earth. 


244 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide 
To light up worlds or wake an insect’s mirth ; 

They shine and shine with unexhausted store. 

Thou art thy Saviour’s darling — seek no more.’ ” 

There was a terrible pain in Mrs. Wickliffe’s 
Iiead; the heat from the stove made her feel faint; 
it seemed that the Saturday's baking never would be 
done ; but she sent the gentle Southern lady away 
comforted. Five minutes after Miss Bryan had 
gone, Mrs. Garrett entered the doorway. 

saw Miss Bryan come here,’’ she said, ^^and 
I watched until she went away ; then I came right 
over. I knew she would wear you all out with her 
Southern ways. Go and lie right down. I will 
watch the bread. Another time I will do your 
baking with mine, in my stove. Mr. Wickliffe 
can bring your bread over as soon as you git it in 
the tins, before it has riz. It’s good for a man to 
bear the yoke in his youth — the Bible says so.” 

Mrs. Garrett wanted to be helpful ; she felt a 
motherly care for the woman who seemed like such 
a slim young thing, for all that she had been a 
home missionary’s wife for ten years. She made 
Mrs. Wicklitfe lie down ; then she put a cool wet 
cloth on the aching head, lowered her voice, and 
stepped softly. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


“TFi/O IS THE ANGEL THAT COMETHf” 

“ Who is the angel that cometh ? 

Death ! 

But do not shudder. and do not fear ; 

Hold your breath, 

For a kingly presence is drawing near. 

Cold and bright 
Is his flashing steel ; 

Cold and bright 

The smile that comes like a starry light 
To calm the terror and grief we feel. 

He comes to help and to save and heal ; 

Then let us, baring our hearts and kneeling, 

Sing, while we wait this angeks sword, 

‘ Blessed is he that cometh 
In the name of the Lord.’ ” 

T he queen of Plierse gave her life to prolong 
that of her husband. Half unconsciously, Mrs. 
Wickliffe did the same thing — did it from a mis- 
taken sense of duty, perhaps, but none the less did 
she sacrifice herself to her husband\s work. Yes, 
I mean just that. Mrs. Wickliffe -was dying of 
want. True, she had enough to eat just then, the 
weather was perfect, and she liked ,the climate. 
Nevertheless, it was long-continued privation that 
undermined the strength of her finely-organized 

245 


246 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


body. The thousand things which brighten our 
lives cannot be purchased on five hundred a year 
when half of that is not paid and rent is twelve 
dollars a month and coal ten dollars a ton. 

The Rev. Calvin Wicklifie was no sentimental 
complainer. He was not given to talking of the 
sacrifices of a missionary’s life. He knew that, 
with the majority of men, life is a hand-to-hand 
struggle for bread. Yet he knew that the time 
and strength that he gave to his work would, if 
spent at the carpenter’s bench, bring in far larger 
returns. He loved his work, and he was doing it 
grandly. Laying up treasures in heaven — yes; but 
you cannot give your grocer a check on that bank. 

Did their faith fail them? It had, only for 
God’s grace. They told the liord their story while 
on their knees at midnight hours. 

There is now no need of such cruel sacrifices. 
God’s Church is not so poor as it once was. It is 
carelessness or ignorance of the times that piles the 
fagots around our modern martyrs. 

At the last it was that most deadly visitant of 
the plains, the disease so dreaded by the Indians — 
rheumatic fever. For days Mrs. Wicklifie lay in 
an immovable vise, suffering untold agony. The 
balance hung between hope and fear — then fear 
went down. She died painfully and })atiently. 

It was evening. Mrs. Harvey and ^liss Geddes 
were in the sick-room. Miss Bryan was there also, 
with a heartbroken look on her pale face. 


WHO IS THE ANGEL THAT COMETHS 247 


Mrs. Wickliffe struggled for breath; the rigid 
nuiseles relaxed, the siitferiug joints moved, but 
the j)0{)r heart almost stopped. Dr. Harvey beut 
over her and whispered, 

^"Your ^Sun of Righteousness’ will rise before 
morning. Can’t you speak to your husband and 
child now?” 

They left the three alone together. 

“ So she took 

The one grand step beyond the stars of God, 

Into the splendor shadowless and broad, 

Into the everlasting joy and light. 

The zenith of her earthly life had come.” 

Miss Geddes stood in the doorway, resting her 
head against the frame. Tears were rolling down 
her cheeks and dropping unnoticed. The light 
from the lamp within the room glorified her splen- 
did hair. Richard Rogers came along the street. 
Three rods. away from the door, he paused and 
spoke her name softly. 

She went toward him. ^^Did you want me?” 
she asked, not choosing her words in her excite- 
ment. 

Yes, Jennella Geddes, I want you — how much, 
only God and my own heart can know.” 

Clouds were driving across the sky, hiding the 
moon. The herb-scented wind blew strong in 
their faces. He took both her hands in one of 
his, and laid his other on her shoulder lightly. 


248 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


She did not turn away. And so in their sorrow 
they were one. Ah, he had not planned to tell 
her so. 

She is failing rapidly,’’ said Miss Geddes after 
a little. “ Mr. Wickliffe and Hope are saying 
good-by now. I wish you might see her again 
before — ” 

I wish I might,” he replied. She has done so 
much for us !” 

The doctor came out. “ She has left us,” he said 
briefly, and then added, “God bless you, my chil- 
dren. May you have a long and happy life to- 
gether.” 

It is thus they come, our joys and sorrows, right 
into the midst of others’ sorrows and joys. Wed- 
ding-bells and funeral-knells sound together. The 
king is dead ! Long live the king ! 

“ Who is the angel that cometh ? 

Joy ! 

Look at his glittering rainbow wings ; 

No alloy 

Lies in the radiant gift he brings. 

Tender and sweet 
He is come to-day, 

Tender and sweet, 

Wliile chains of love on his silver feet 

Will hold him in lingering fond delay ; 

But greet him quickly, he will not stay ; 

Soon he will leave us ; but though for others 

All his bright treasures are stored, 

‘ Blessed is he that cometh 
In the name of the Lord.’ ” 


WHO IS THE ANGEL THAT COMETHf” 249 


Richard and Jenny went into the house together. 
All, her Sun of Righteousness had indeed risen. 

Hope was sobbing in Mrs. Harvey’s arms. ]\Ir. 
Wickliffe was kneeling beside his wife with his face 
buried in her pillow. Had he been a younger man, 
his grief might have been violent. But such is 
human love that, as time goes on, it strengthens. 
So also does it become a strengthener. For its sake 
we can meet pain and trial bravely, if not cheer- 
fully. Such had been the tempering of souls in the 
life of pain and trial that this man and wife had 
lived, that he had grown strong even to meet this 
shock with calmness. For her sake he could work 
on, even when his heart was breaking. 

Miss Bryan stood at the foot of the bed, weeping 
bitterly ; Mrs. Garrett came in, and so they stood 
together, side by side. No touch of their bitterness 
could reach her eternal quietness. Then Miss Bryan 
turned and went out. 

Boom City repeated Mrs. Wicklitfe’s words in 
memory of her : Ladies, we are more than North- 
erners or Southerners. We are children of the great 
King, princesses in our own right. Our Elder 
Brother was crucified by his enemies, and he for- 
gave them.” 

Then they told again how she stooped to pick up 
the pieces of bright calico that fell around Miss Bryan 
that day so long ago. They felt that she belonged 
to them, and they mourned for her as for one they 
loved. Some one wondered if she would forget 


250 RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 

tliem, even in heaven. And so her memory helped 
them. 

Tlie Rev. Calvin Wickliffe went on with his 
work. He spoke of his wife as though she still 
lived. ^^She likes that ^^We will do this to 
please her,” — such were his words. He never 
spoke of his sorrow. People said “ he took her 
death hard.” 

Just once did Lon Dietrich dare speak his sym- 
pathy: ^^It’s hard luck, ain’t it, preacher? Let 
me sort of hold you up and comfort you a bit. I 
wish some one had done it for me when my Robbie 
died. I felt as I used to feel when I was a little 
chap and tumbled down and was all stunned like. 
I couldn’t get my bearings for a spell.” Lon put 
his arms around his pastor, adding brokenly, She 
were so pretty and nice like. How do you bear 
up so?” 

She went to the Saviour who said, ^ I will not 
leave you comfortless ; I will come to you ;’ ” and 
the mourning minister laid his head upon his 
brother’s shoulder while they wept together. 

That was just one year from the day that Lon 
Dietrich’s whiskey killed two men. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


PLAilSIXO A HOME. 

“ O fortunate, O happy day, 

When a new household tinds a place 
Among the myriad homes of earth, 

Like a new star just sprung to birth 
And rolled on its harmonious way 
Into the boundless realms of space! 

Upon the polished silver shine 
The evening lamps, but, more divine, 

The light of love shines over all — 

Of love that says not mine and thine. 

But ours, for ours is thine and mine.” 

J ENNELLA GEDDES shut down the lid of 
her trunk and clas})ed the spring padlock to- 
gether. Then she rose to her feet and looked about 
the room, which, bare of all her treasures, had a 
foreign look after making it her home for months. 
The individuality was gone out of it. Over the 
bare necessaries of existence was stamped, as plain- 
Iv as though it ajtpeared in printed letters, To 
Let.’’ Miss Geddes wondered who the next roomer 
would be. Slie felt sure she should not succeed 
herself, and was thankful for it when her landlady 
bade her a voluble good-by. 

She took her parasol and the hat which had been 

251 ■ 


252 


RICHARD ROGERS, .CHRISTIAN. 


through the mystery of shoe-blacking from the 
hooks behind the door. That was a dismal corner, 
now that the pretty curtain had been taken down. 
Then she went into the sunlight of a late June 
afternoon and walked along the street toward Dr. 
Harvey’s, where she was to spend her last day in 
Boom City — her last day as Jennella Geddes. She 
wondered, as girls will, how life would seem to her 
when she appeared there as some one else. As if 
to give tone to her speculations, Richard Rogers 
overtook her as she turned down Lincoln street. 

I thought you planned to go to Mrs. Harvey’s 
early this afternoon ?” he said as they walked 
along. 

“ It took me longer to say good-by than I 
thought it would,” she replied with a laugh. My 
room looks as dreary now as the world looked to 
me for the first half hour after I arrived in Boom 
City.” 

I hardly think it does,” he said with a steady 
look into her face. You cried then ; you have 
not shed a tear to-day.” 

How did you know that I cried then?” 

^^Oh, there were lots of little wee bits of sobs in 
your voice, and your eyes did not look* just as they 
do now. There is Mrs. Harvey by the window. 
I want you to look at the house-plan again, and see 
if you would like any changes made.” 

Fifteen minutes later, the doctor called his wife 
into the office, and the lovers were left alone to- 


PLANNING A HOME. 


253 


gether iu the sitting-room. Miss Geddes was sit- 
ting in a large splint rocking-chair. She had taken 
out her work, and was crocheting vigorously. 

Mr. Rogers was sitting on the couch, leaning 
against its arm. He reached out his hand, and, 
taking hold of the arm of Miss Geddes’ chair, drew 
it quite near him. The house-plan lay neglected 
on his knee. As her chair began to move. Miss 
Geddes drew in her breath with a little exclamation, 
but said nothing. 

^^What are you making of that string?’^ Mr. 
Rogers inquired. 

Table-mats,^’ she said. This is for the meat- 
platter.” 

Mr. Rogers took the ball of yarn, slipped his 
pencil through it, and then held it up. How do 
you suppose they wind that?” he inquired. 

By macliiuery, I guess. Oh, you naughty !” 
she cried as he held the yarn, not allowing it to 
wind olf the ball as she needed it. Don’t bother; 
that’s a good boy. You know I must get these 
done before I go.” 

“ Why before you go?” 

So that I can leave them with Mrs. Harvey, 
and save paying freight on them.” 

That will be quite a saving. Those mats must 
weigh near half a pound. Never mind the freight, 
and tell me if you are perfectly satisfied with this 
house-plan.” 

I shall be satisfied with the house as long as I 


254 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


am satisfied with you/’ she said, trying to draw the 
yarn from his hands. 

Whereupon Mr. Rogers took j'jossession of her 
liands as well as of her work. How long shall 
yon be satisfied with me?’^ he asked very soberly. 

The hands stopped trying to get away. She 
turned her face toward his and answered, 

“ For ever.” 

The best part of having a home,” said Richard, 
after a little, is having a place to ask people to. 
When Mr. Wicklifie first came here there was not 
a home open for him in this place. Those who 
could take him would not, and those who would, 
could not. I made a bunk for him in my office 
for the first few nights. You see, it was before 
Harvey’s folks got in here; and, by the way, the 
train was late the night he came. He finished out 
that night on a bench in the hotel office. I made 
lip my mind then that if I ever had a home I would 
make people welcome in it.” 

I think the nicest part of having a home will 
be having a place that we can shut people out of ;” 
then her face grew very rosy, and she went on : 
^‘Just think how many years I have boarded! 
There was nothing at all home-like at the normal 
training school.” 

“ I understand your feeling, dear one,” he re- 
plied ; ^M)ut I had a little lesson in just that very 
thing. One of the men in the Detroit office mar- 
ried while I was there. He was a nice young fel- 


PLANNING A HOME. 


255 


low, and we chummed it a good deal. I heard all 
about his plans. I think he loved his girl de- 
votedly, but he was very jealous of her family. He 
said he was not going to marry the whole family, 
and when she mari-ied him she had to give up her 
folks. He said he was going to give up all for 
her, and she must do the same. AVell, she came to 
Detroit, and they went to housekeeping. He asked 
me very cordially to call, and I went a few times, 
though my knowledge of his opinion of com})any 
made it rather chilly there. I ahvays felt unneces- 
sary. One day I got a message to come up to his 
rooms. He had not been at the office for a couple 
of days, but I w^as busy and thought nothing of it. 
There w’as crape on the door when I got there, and 
Wilson met me like a wuld man. He was a slen- 
der fellow, all nerves and no self-control. Any 
sort of trouble broke him all up. He was going 
to take his wife^s body back East ; it was already 
in the casket, and he w’as waiting for me to go into 
the room with him to see her. The poor boy was 
actually afraid of his dead wife ! I tell you, Jenny, 
there is some one nearer to us than either husband 
or wife can be, and it does not do to be too selfish 
even in our love. ^For I, the Lord thy God, am 
a jealous God.^ I thought of tliat wdien I saw poor 
AVJlson^s grief. Death held his bride so close and 
so far away from him ! Oh, there is Gio voice, no 
language in death.’ I have thought of him a thou- 
sand times since I have loved you. I pray every 


256 BICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 

day that the Lord will keep me from loving you 
more than I love him. I am not afraid of loving 
you too much if I keep his place still above yours. 
Indeed, I do not think a man capable of the high- 
est kind of love unless he first love God. Darling, 
let us consecrate our love, our happiness, our 
home.” 

She raised her face to meet her lover’s kiss, say- 
ing softly, “I will try.” 

The lips that Richard kissed were quivering. 
The face was very sober after he went back to his 
office. Miss Geddes had a disappointed sense that, 
after all, she might not be all to her lover. The 
new anxiety as she faced life’s solemn questions 
gave her an air of sweet dignity lacking in her 
gayest moments. 

‘^Is it the house or the lover?” Mrs. Harvey 
asked. 

Miss Geddes looked up from her work question- 
ingly. 

Which is it that makes you so quiet?” Mrs. 
Harvey went on. There is just a little sadness 
around the corners of your mouth.” 

I think,” Miss Geddes replied — I think Rich- 
ard wants a home more for other people than for 
ourselves.” 

What makes you think so?” 

He plans so much about having other people to 
see us.” 

^^Yes,” said Mrs. Harvey; ^Ghat is man-like. 


PLANNING A HOME. 


257 


I came near wrecking my happiness on that same 
rock. I would advise you not to sail that way.’^ 

“ You came near wrecking your happiness 
Miss Geddes exclaimed with a quick look into the 
happy wife’s face. 

‘‘ Yes,” said Mrs. Harvey. Will never knew 
it, but I did. When we first went to housekeep- 
ing, my husband’s sister Lizzie boarded with us 
and went to school. She is a dear girl (or was — 
she is married now), and I loved her very much ; 
but for all of that I was jealous of her. I wanted 
to be company enough for Will myself. I just 
suffered agony all that year when he kept saying 
how nice it was to have Lizzie with us. Then he 
seemed so happy to have one of his friends ,to din- 
ner ! Lizzie married one of his chums. When the 
school-year closed Lizzie went home. We went to 
the station to see her otf, and I was wickedly glad 
that she was gone, though I blush to say it now. 
After we reached home Will put his arm around 
me and said, ‘ Now, Lena, we can live alone together 
for a while. It’s so much jollier to be alone with 
you ; but I never felt like begrudging other folks 
what crumbs of happiness they can find around 
our table.’ You have no idea how ashamed I felt. 
I kept my own council, and have never been jealous 
since. I would advise you to profit by the story.” 

From that their talk turned toward table-cloths, 
dish-towels, and dusters. The look of sadness on 
Miss Geddes’ face changed to happy perplexity. 

17 


258 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


Cook-stoves, tables, and chairs are commonplace 
articles, but they are endowed with a sacred mys- 
tery when a girl first thinks of owning them her- 
self. She wonders if a certain oven would always 
bake nicely, how the table would look laid for two, 
and if he would like those chairs. She wonders 
how much they would all cost. Shie sees all the 
articles of household furniture in shop-windows. 
Her mother owns such things, she herself has used 
them from her babyhood, yet all at once she be- 
comes conscious that her knowledge is quite super- 
ficial. She wonders what his taste would be in 
matters of which no man ever dreamed of having 
an opinion. 


CHAPTER XXXIL 


AS WE FORGIVE. 

“ Still let her mild rebuking stand 
Between us and the wrong, 

And her dear memory serve to make 
Our faith in goodness strong.” 



RS. GARRETT stood in her doorway, look- 


ing off on the prairies to the south. Her 
hand was shading her eyes, and the corners of her 
mouth were drawn down in a disapproving way. 
She was watching a figure disappearing in the dis- 


tance, 


There he goes,’’ she said to herself ; he will 
walk more than fifty miles before he gets back here 
on prayer-meeting night. It is amazing how that 
man does work! Well, it’s ray opinion that a home 
missionary has to work. But it seems to me Mr. 
AVickliffe does have such hard times. I feel for 
him, I do. There I am watching him out of sight,- 
and that is a sure si2:n I’ll never see him attain. 
Wonder what will happen to him? Hope he’ll 
drink tea instead of water while he’s gone. Chang- 
ing water is bad. Moses says there is nothing in 
that sign ; but I have always thought there was 
since I watched Sammy out of sight.” 


259 


260 RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 

As she turned, her eyes rested for a moment on 
the bluff where Mrs. Wickliffe’s last bed had been 
made. “ 1^11 take some flowers over and put them 
on that poor thing’s grave this very afternoon,” 
she thought, and went about her work. 

There was a good breeze that day, though the 
rays of the sun seemed scorching hot. IVIrs. Gar- 
rett seldom allowed the weather to interfere with 
her plans. As soon as her dinner-work was done 
she started on her mission of love. It was a long 
walk, and, like a sensible woman, Mrs. Garrett 
carried an umbrella. She paused on the corner of 
Lincoln street to watch the painters at work on 
Mr. Rogers’ new house. She stopped on the bridge 
to rest. The wind had died away, and the heat 
was oppressive; such birds as were astir flapped 
their wings wearily ; vegetation wilted. After a 
little she went on up the bluff with a steady, plod- 
ding step. She panted a good deal when she 
reached the top. In the cemetery she paused be- 
side the cowboys’ graves. She laid a bunch of pe- 
tunias over Whistler’s head. 

Ah, there are so many forgotten, nameless graves 
in the West! 

The cemetery was an nnkept place full of tall 
bunch-grass. She could see only a little way be- 
fore her. As she neared Mrs. Wickliffe’s grave 
she stopped suddenly. 

Beside that grave, arranging pansies in a plate 
of moist sand, sat Miss Flora Bryan. She was 


AS WB FORGIVE. 


261 


clad in a sheer white dress, and held a lace parasol 
over her head. The pansies were wet with her 
tears. Absorbed in her work and in her grief, she 
did not notice Mrs. Garrett^s approach. 

A cluster of purple asters dropped from Mrs. 
Garrett’s hand; she picked them up and and went be- 
hind the bunch-grass to wait until her enemy should 
be gone. She sat down and held her umbrella close 
over her head. In her heart there were bitter 
thoughts of the Southern woman bending over the 
grave she had come to decorate. She did not notice 
that, up in the sky, ominous changes were going on. 

The feathery clouds seemed moving -in an upper 
current of air. They mixed and remixed, chang- 
ing their shape until they looked like banks of 
brilliant cobblestones. Then they spread over the 
whole sky. 

There came a dash of hail. A sudden wind 
turned Mrs. Garrett’s umbrella wrong side out. 
She struggled with it, but the wind was too strong 
for her. The umbrella went flapping away, while 
the cruel hail-stones were driving around her. 

Then did Annis Garrett think again of her ene- 
my. For one wild moment she rejoiced in any- 
thing that brought pain or trouble to Miss Bryan. 
But there came the memory of those for ever silent 
lips so near to her — just out of reach of the storm. 
Tliese words sounded again in her ears : 

Ladies, we are more than Northerners or South- 
erners. We are daughters of the great King, prin- 


262 


ETCHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


cesses in our own right. Our Elder Brother was 
crucified by his enemies, and lie forgave them.’’ 

Mrs. Garrett struggled toward the spot where 
her enemy lay prostrate in the storm ; her voice 
mingled with the howiing of the tempest: ^^Miss 
Bryan ! Miss Bryan ! I am coming to take care of 
you.” 

It was a pity that the Northern hail-stones beat 
upon that delicate head. Flora Bryan had fainted, 
and lay with her face downward upon the grave, 
like a flower lying there drenched and bruised. 

Mrs. Garrett bent over her, shielding her with 
her own stout form ; and so they found them when 
the storm was over. Both were unconscious. 


CHAPTER XXXIIL 


HOW SHALL IT END? 

“ If things end at all 1 

I sometimes fancy they do not, but break and break 
In ceaseless ripples, such as crimp the lake 
When in its depth one lets a pebble fall.” 

OULD you have me finish my story with a 



» * weddiug, and tell you they lived happy ever 
after? Some lives end that way. So I would tell 
you of the pretty home on Lincoln street where 
Richard Rogers goes at evening ; of the light- 
hearted, loving wife who presides over that home ; 
and of the thousand influences that go out from it 
to help and cheer and save the poor, the sad, and 
the sinful. I would tell you how many mothers’ 
sons are kept back from ruin by Richard Rogers’ 
care, and how Lon Dietrich is his most faithful 
helper ; and how Lon enjoys his quiet home, where 
his children are never afraid of him. 

Would you hear of the invalid-chair where 
Annis Garrett sits, peaceful and content? for her 
work was ended in the brave deed done in the hail- 
storm. Since then the stout form which shielded 
Flora Bryan has lain in the grasp of paralysis ; but 


263 


264 


RICHARD ROGERS, CHRISTIAN. 


her heart blossomed and her soul grew lovely iu 
forgiving her enemy. 

Shall I tell you how the delicate Southern woman 
grew so strong in the prairie air that she has learned 
to love the North at last? 

Would you have me tell you more of the real 
hero of my story — the brave preacher going about 
telling the story of the world’s divine Pattern^ 
while, as they said of Luther, “ his words are half 
battles ” ? His words and his life were the rock 
against which the tide of immorality and vice 
turned, and Boom City was saved, as thousands of 
other Western towns must be saved if America is 
to be a free country fifty years hence. 

The lives of which I have been writing will 
cease here. To some will come rest on the bluff 
where friends we love are sleeping. The deeds they 
did will live after them, for the end is just begin- 
ning in those Western towns. We shall know the 
whole story when the world is ended. 

The need of Christian workers grows faster than 
the workers go to the front. If we would save our 
nation, we must give the gospel to the West. 

The balance of po^\er will soon be on the sunset 
side of the Mississippi. Whether or not the decid- 
ing vote be cast for Christ depends upon our home 
missionaries and the work they do. Because of this 
w^e shall be held responsible. 


THE END. 


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